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[Lyn Farel]

Yes.

[Aria Jenneth]

I think I'll probably add that while I think the new Drifters look really cool and the current arc is probably interesting and engaging for a lot of people - especially new ones - I can't shake the feeling of being here before with the Sleepers and Sansha which seem very much the same with the whole, "Oh no guys, there's this new and unknown threat to all mankind with advanced technology we don't understand and we all need to unite together because CONCORD is useless." Etcetera. Etcetera.

Bah. Where's the fun in being jaded and bittervet-y?

The way I look at it (1) it's mostly we ourselves who drive the more hysterical edge of the whole business; (2) the three iterations of this pattern are really three different manifestations of a single plot thread; (3) each has introduced something worthwhile to Eve.

Sleepers: look! NPCs that can fight back!

Sansha: look! NPCs that appear at random, fight back, gatecamp, and highsec-gank freighters!

Drifters: look! NPCs that can kick your ass, pursue you relentlessly, pod you, and [insert whatever we learn next here].

It is we ourselves who drive us into a tizzy in search of entertainment. CCP might have oversold the Sansha a bit, fine, but raise your hand if you ever actually thought the core gameplay was in any danger?

Me neither. Logically-defensible histrionics are fun, that's all.

Of course, it maybe looks a little different from my lack-of-desktop-induced position of inability to log in.

*little Aria bounces up and down at the back of the crowd*

"Daddy, I can't see! What's going on?"

[Veiki]

Everyone has different tastes, I think. The current arc/s have little interest to me as a player because what attracted to me to Eve as a setting in the first place was that I thought it was about human stories in a human setting. Driven by politics, ideology, and humanity being itself for both good and ill among the stars.

The current arcs involving the Jove, Sleepers, Drifters, Sansha, Enhedduani, and The Other just don't interest me because the whole "Humanity vs. Ancient Alien Evil" is for me, overdone and cliche in sci-fi settings. There's no difference between them fundamentally to me and the Borg in Star Trek; the Shadows in Babylon 5; the Daleks in Dr. Who; or the Reapers in Mass Effect; and practically every xenos vs. Imperium of Man in WH40k.

And there's nothing wrong with it if that's what other people enjoy in their fiction: the obvious Big Bad Evil Threat. I think that's what makes Eve fantastic, while other people go off and fight the Ancient Evil Aliens I can still just continue enjoying what it is that I do that doesn't involve that content.

[Louella Dougans]

If these Drifters are a significant threat then:

Why are you doing FW when the Drifters are attacking ?

which trumps the previous:
Why are you internal factional RPing when FW is happening ?


If the drifters aren't a significant threat then:

Why should we care, when FW is happening ?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

plot being mediocre makes me care less

[Lyn Farel]

If these Drifters are a significant threat then:

Why are you doing FW when the Drifters are attacking ?

which trumps the previous:
Why are you internal factional RPing when FW is happening ?


If the drifters aren't a significant threat then:

Why should we care, when FW is happening ?

Déjà-vu with the Sansha incursions. Then they proved to be mild and farmable, pointless, so we went back to your last point.

[Aria Jenneth]

The current arcs involving the Jove, Sleepers, Drifters, Sansha, Enhedduani, and The Other just don't interest me because the whole "Humanity vs. Ancient Alien Evil" is for me, overdone and cliche in sci-fi settings. There's no difference between them fundamentally to me and the Borg in Star Trek; the Shadows in Babylon 5; the Daleks in Dr. Who; or the Reapers in Mass Effect; and practically every xenos vs. Imperium of Man in WH40k.

Thing is, I don't see any of the Eve factions, including the Other, as alien.

Or maybe even evil. I don't trust Tony G's sensibilities in that area; far as he's apparently concerned, the Gallente are the "heroes" of this story. That strikes me as obvious nonsense.

Thing is, Eve's ultimately a story with a sort of ... border-posthuman setting. Baseliners are still plentiful, but there's an increasing population of people who don't live by the same rules of what it means to be "a person." The "human condition" is in flux.

The various Ancients are just representative of options farther down that road. They're human, root and stem, but they might not be easily recognized as such. Even "The Other" is a human creation (or an emergent result of same; I'm unclear on the details and don't really care), but, much like the Rogue Drones, represents a runaway bit of tech.

I don't think CCP is going the Lovecraftian Evil route with any of this. This is just culture clash writ large with a dash of unintended technological consequences.

[Lyn Farel]

I don't have any serious issues with those new threats, I mean the ancient evil plot may be overused but here it looks decent enough to me, where those Jove actually are not the evil ones more than we are, it's still full of grey and the post human technoblabble is interesting in itself.

What bothers me more is what Lou pointed out above. It already happened with FW, and then Sansha incursions, and RP wise it's sometimes a bit ugly. It tends to serious break suspension of disbelief,  or break the fourth wall. And when it doesn't, it breaks the old rivalries to find new, more fundamental and important ones. I wouldn't mind at all if it was not actually killing or making obsolete the more conventional stuff. This is shadowing, towering over everything else, making it... negligible and inconsequential.

[Aria Jenneth]

I don't have any serious issues with those new threats, I mean the ancient evil plot may be overused but here it looks decent enough to me, where those Jove actually are not the evil ones more than we are, it's still full of grey and the post human technoblabble is interesting in itself.

What bothers me more is what Lou pointed out above. It already happened with FW, and then Sansha incursions, and RP wise it's sometimes a bit ugly. It tends to serious break suspension of disbelief,  or break the fourth wall. And when it doesn't, it breaks the old rivalries to find new, more fundamental and important ones. I wouldn't mind at all if it was not actually killing or making obsolete the more conventional stuff. This is shadowing, towering over everything else, making it... negligible and inconsequential.

I think it might work better spread out over a fair few more years or decades, but in its way it seems kinda true to life.

international bickerbicker -> something earthshaking comes along -> the world holds its breath -> the world fails to end -> resume bickering

Now I think on it, it happens at one level or another every few months.

Tsunamis. Disease outbreaks. International crises.

For those of us not actually caught up in the incident, life after is pretty much the same as life before.

Of course, I swear there people who could stand in the middle of a nuclear firestorm singing, "Nothing changes! / Nothing ever will!"

[Veiki]

The various Ancients are just representative of options farther down that road. They're human, root and stem, but they might not be easily recognized as such. Even "The Other" is a human creation (or an emergent result of same; I'm unclear on the details and don't really care), but, much like the Rogue Drones, represents a runaway bit of tech.

If a human becomes unrecognizable in terms of potential motivations and intentions due to technology then they might as well be alien for those encountering them.

Whilst themes of entering into a post-human or trans-human condition are to me an essential part of what makes Eve as a setting for me, it makes me ask what point was there in having all the different factions in the first place if it was intended to become a central theme with the current arcs. Factional politics are either reduced to irrelevancy or it ends up as it is now with the Sleepers/Sansha/Drifters representing potential existential threats, but the factions still preferring to kill each other to the point that it implies a) they're really not that threatening or b) the factions are absurd as regards their decision making in leadership.

[Aria Jenneth]

If a human becomes unrecognizable in terms of potential motivations and intentions due to technology then they might as well be alien for those encountering them.

Whilst themes of entering into a post-human or trans-human condition are to me an essential part of what makes Eve as a setting for me, it makes me ask what point was there in having all the different factions in the first place if it was intended to become a central theme with the current arcs. Factional politics are either reduced to irrelevancy or it ends up as it is now with the Sleepers/Sansha/Drifters representing potential existential threats, but the factions still preferring to kill each other to the point that it implies a) they're really not that threatening or b) the factions are absurd as regards their decision making in leadership.

I'd rather regard (1) the Sleepers as a threat we kinda made up ourselves (until recently, they showed no sign of actual aggression); (2) Sansha's Nation as a more limited threat than it was portrayed as-- and I'd rather play with the implications than go *forhead-slap* "PLOT HOLE!" (Aria's long-standing theory is that someone was giving us a sort of high-end practice dummy); and (3) the Drifters as a powerful, but, if I understand it correctly, RARE, threat that is probably more of a problem for passersby than for the empires.

If you have excellent reason to think that you face a remorseless enemy that will take any opportunity to seize an advantage, of course you're going to be reluctant to let your guard down. And every one of the empires has excellent reason to think exactly like that.

Now, having said all of that, that's not to say I'm not bothered. I am bothered.

I'm not bothered about this, no.

It is this that bothers me.

Let me unpack "alien" intelligences into human motivations! Please! Let me muse and speculate over their every action! But first, you have to let me know that they exist!

[Lyn Farel]

I thought the appearance of circadian and drifters was as a vanguard assaulting force on New Eden to stop us from harvesting sleeper sites ?

[Veiki]

I'd rather regard (1) the Sleepers as a threat we kinda made up ourselves (until recently, they showed no sign of actual aggression); (2) Sansha's Nation as a more limited threat than it was portrayed as-- and I'd rather play with the implications than go *forhead-slap* "PLOT HOLE!" (Aria's long-standing theory is that someone was giving us a sort of high-end practice dummy); and (3) the Drifters as a powerful, but, if I understand it correctly, RARE, threat that is probably more of a problem for passersby than for the empires.

If you have excellent reason to think that you face a remorseless enemy that will take any opportunity to seize an advantage, of course you're going to be reluctant to let your guard down. And every one of the empires has excellent reason to think exactly like that.

Now, having said all of that, that's not to say I'm not bothered. I am bothered.

I'm not bothered about this, no.

It is this that bothers me.

Let me unpack "alien" intelligences into human motivations! Please! Let me muse and speculate over their every action! But first, you have to let me know that they exist!

I was really only thinking along the lines that if the current arcs were always intended from day one all those years ago then it probably would have been more compelling for me if current humanity was represented as a singular faction with a broad mileu of different political, economic, and religious agendas internally while the actual threats posed by things like the Sleepers and Drifters are only slowly revealed and uncovered with lost colonies on the fringes and other mysterious things.

However, my last point about factional politics being absurd is probably how I approach things currently with Eve. To me that's part of the dystopian and dysfunctional aspect of the setting that I enjoy and I can still enjoy it while not participating in the current Drifter things because I remember how Arek'Jaalan and the Sansha Incursions panned out and I'd rather not be involved if it's just going to be more of the same along those lines from CCP.

As for the Other, then I'd say it's probably one of many times the cart has been placed before the horse in the lore causing a degree of doublethink on the part of a player as regards how their character sees the world and events.

[Lyn Farel]

While I can understand that in some circumstances the fact that the spectator/reader/watcher is omniscient and knows things that the characters do not, especially the whole plot, can prove enjoyable and a powerful tool for narrative sake, here I don't think it works well. I am currently reading a thriller IRL, and the author makes the same mistake : I already know everything from page 1, and am watching characters struggling to find the truth... It's a bit boring.

I think players were a lot more involved and enthusiastic in stuff like A'J were the mysteries were still to be discovered OOCly too. Without even speaking of obvious OOC/IC bleedovers with people magically pointing in the right direction with their characters from the beginning.

[Aria Jenneth]

Lyn:

I think the "giving away the mystery" bit works best when the mystery is something really simple with huge implications.

Ever seen "Ju-On"? Its premise gets explained right at the start.

Ju-On is a curse left by one who died in the grip of a terrible rage. It haunts the places it knew in life. Those who encounter it become infected by it and die, and the curse spreads.

Simple. Direct. Horrifying. They start with that premise and stick to it (it's when they start varying from it, in the sequels, that it gets messy). The rest is an intimate examination of the consequences: a series of tragedies, lives touched by the curse, all hurtling, wittingly or not, towards oblivion. Nobody escapes.


The Other, on the other hand (ha) smacks of "Hey, guys! Look at this really neat plotline we've got going on that none of your characters are aware of! Isn't it cool?"

Or, alternatively:

"We've switched the regular Empress of the Amarr with an emergent artificial intelligence. Let's see if they notice!"