It does nothing to advance the story of New Eden. The Tribes. The Federation. The State. The Empire. The Serpentis. The Angels. The Sansh... okay, those got fucked right good and proper even before they got started on TonyG's nonsense.
Someone else put it brilliantly. "EVE is showing what happens when you don't have a story team. It means your game becomes incredibly shallow."
Only piecemeal or singleplayer, from what I can tell. Ironically, the ancient X3TC feels infinitely more alive than Eve at the moment. Funnily enough, Star Citizen is starting to actually look good. Imagine my surprise when I see they actually make progress with that game. If they don't make the massive mistake E:D did and let you pop in and out of the multiplayer part at will, it could actually be exactly what Eve should have been.
Yeah, that was literally one of my first thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077's E3 trailer. "This is what Eve could be inspiring in the minds of the players." It's basically Eve: Dirtside for me. Gods I can't wait for that game, every article about that 'behind locked doors' 50 minute demo almost got me gibbering with excitement about it.
That said, one of the issues we face is that once plot is written into game mechanics, it becomes a fixed point. After all, changing incursions, FW, etc, would potentially destroy existing and fairly major niches in the game
The only real issue is that ccp has been perma-cowed and frightened into not "upsetting" their 0.0 masters or carebear ratting players.
That said, for those who don't feel strongly about 'GRR HAT <opposing faction>' stuff, Drifters, Triglavians, Rogue Drones, etc, give us something to play with.
Minor point to contest about above; the entire playerbase represents -independent- capsuleers who have gotten their pilot's licenses and who may go back and work for empires (loyalists, mission runners, etc), but aren't necessarily in the empire navies proper.
The NPC navies have thousands of capsuleers we don't ever interact with, and that's not who you are pew pewing for missions or belt rats or whatever, usually just the dev actors who are actual other capsuleers. It's why you can kill hundreds of baseliner ships without breaking a sweat, you are going up against baseliner ships and crews.
Limitations in the dev toolkits and mission scripting from the beginning of the game probably have more to do with this than plotting, etc. Gotta make your player feel big and strong pew pewing lots of ships and blowing them up.
The way the lore USED to be, and I'm not up on things lately, was that the entire eve playerbase and all the 0.0 power blocs represented a tiny fraction of actual empire navies and their capabilities. IE if the Caldari State wants to go shit on Cloud Ring or Querious or whatever, whatever player bloc goonbearhoneyswarmwhatever would be easily brushed aside (according to old lore). I think they've retconned this a bit over the years like the null blocs are now suddenly scurry and strong enough to scare the empires?
That never made any sense to me, none of the 4 empires would train a bunch of capsuleers and say 'hey go have fun and multiply and challenge our rule.'
I always reasoned that by signing the Yulai accords, the empires all agreed to 'release' a tiny portion of their capsuleer graduates as independents.
It's like if you today got trained by the US AirForce for years and they spend millions of dollars on you to fly jets they dont let you graduate and then hop on the first flight to mercenary life and fly for the Taliban or whatever.
But :psyccp: gotta goose the null egos
I think they've retconned this a bit over the years like the null blocs are now suddenly scurry and strong enough to scare the empires?
The one thing that needs to be pretty iron-clad in Eve RP is "What you see in this moment is very much what is going on" when you're undocked. It's the only way to keep the playing field level. If we can just start making shit up as we go, it goes from that level playing field to kids going "I shot you!!" "Nuh uh! You missed!" "Okay fine, I shoot a nuke bazooka!" "I dodged." levels of herpaderp. Starting to make shit up that is demonstrably not within our capabilities, or almost worse, making up limitations we demonstrably don't have will eventually make it nigh impossible to interact with each other reasonably.
If something happens in space, it happens by the mechanics and game logs, because that's the only common and equal playing field we've got when undocked. If it happens outside of the game-mechanics and rather in fiction, it can't overrule or affect the actual game-mechanics we are limited by, because that just opens up the most horrific cans of worms. "I board your station, unload a bunch of marines and they do X and Y and Z to Insert Facility Here." "Wait, shit. That's an option? I mean if it was, I'd have been dropping countless thousands of Marines in every enemy citadel and station in New Eden a thousand times over. When did we become able to do this?" as an example. And we didn't. Actual game mechanics trumps all, because they're the only commonality between all players. The closest we can reasonably get to doing otherwise is having our characters disbelieve something. Which is a bit of a stroke of good luck Miz being too old for the NPE, because having to acknowledge that fucking retarded shit show would completely break any semblance of reason in New Eden, heh. But I digress.
Creating an interesting story sometimes requires a bit of suspension of disbelief either IC or OOC (or both), and personally I don't think it's fair to try and deny this for others.
If we push too much into the "only in-space events actually happen or matter" then Eve RP collapses entirely.
Small addition: whatever one thinks of it, the NPE is canon. Like all mission-style activity, a little bit of squinting may be needed to reconcile it with the world sensibly, but we don't get to pick and choose canon. vOv
This is where generally accepted standards and people not intentionally being shit to each other comes in.
"Being able to crash the Emperor Family Station into the planet" is beyond the parameters of what's reasonable or realistic to even try and claim, so nobody is going to try and declare that they've done that.
If you and Samira RP'd the capture of a citadel through marines, then when it went public I'd imagine most people would be happy to accept that as it is reasonable, pre-agreed, and doesn't break anything in the established game world.
Again, I don't disagree with this in essence.
The bit I have a problem with is if two (or more) people get together and agree that "x is going to happen in their arc", and it's not something that the game allows to be played through, it is not up to uninvolved people to jump in and shit on them for it.
It doesn't actually harm anyone if people decide to play something "impossible" as long as they keep the impact of said event within those involved, and the community in general recognise that what might be "allowed" for one person isn't automatically "allowed" for someone else.
A tiny bit of communication literally solves all your issues.
Except I can't go to any of those incredible sci-fi settings because the game won't let me out of my ship.Sure you can. Same way you go to the Summit, same way you go to bars etc. Of course, you can't squeeze your Machariel or whatever into the bar, but that's what docking is for. I think you got it backwards here: What you can do outside of the game mechanics is damn near unlimited. My problem is that when the game mechanics are in place for something, then the game mechanics trump the fiction. Would you believe me if I said I anchored a few Keepstars solo? Of course not, it'd be ludicrous. Would you believe me if I said I boarded a Titan? Of course not, it's ludicrous. If I'm to anchor cities in space, I damn well better actually do it in space. If I'm to take on one of your ships, I don't get to just say "I launch boarders" in local and wait for you to self-destruct. I'll have to damn well shoot you.
Thanks for the ad hominem at the end there, but you've missed my point.
The game, as it is, is spaceships. It is entirely spaceships. It is 100% spaceships.
Every single thing I write about Kalaratiri is "outside the game mechanics". Every bar she goes to, every planet she walks on, every cigarette she smokes, is "outside the game".
The setting is not the game. The setting allows for incredible stories.
The game does too, but in a very different way. The game lets me talk about surviving a fight in 1% structure, or that bombing run that killed 130 battleships, or killing my first titan, or mining for a supercapital.
The setting lets me talk about Kala, and it's almost all outside the game.
Now if creating backstories for our characters can be accepted, why not other things that don't directly exist within the game, but do in the setting?
Hrm, looks like some of what I quoted got pruned?
Kor's stuff
There has to be some point between those two extremes where we say we're not comfortable with stretching the RP/Gameplay boundary.