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[Ollie]

Arista, the situation you're describing is the first way Player B could handle it - "there must be something wrong with my translator", albeit with your own twist on it. That's generally the path of least OOC butthurt and it's the way most people I've seen deal with it - ie, not the dick way

That said there are a limited number of people who like and some who even thrive on OOC conflict. And yes, I've seen it happen both with regards to language and various other RP, both in EVE and in other games. I put it down to the fact that some people just like drama :shrug:

To clarify, the point I was trying to make was that applying something like Ges's definitions strictly without tempering it with a measure of common sense and co-operation usually leads to the same outcome as going too far in the other direction.  For RP to work effectively two parties have to find a middle ground they both can accept.

[Morwen Lagann]

Let's be fair - if you are making someone have to ask, technically you're the one being a dick in the first place because existing PF says it shouldn't be necessary - Napaani wouldn't be anywhere near obscure enough for it to be one of the exceptions, based on the player-written lore surrounding it.

The languages are great for flavor, but this kind of mess is why I'm a little meh on using them in wide-open-public RP. Great to have special words that we can use to describe concepts or EVE-specific things/places so we're not making long-winded-explanations-that-usually-end-with-"kind-of-like-a-RL-thing", but whenever you have to stop and explain what the fuck it is you're saying, or someone has to ask, you're often disrupting the flow of things - sometimes it works out okay, but often enough it doesn't.

I also don't want to imply that everyone else is 'doing it wrong' with what I say here - but I think, as an example, Stitcher tends to 'do it right' by explicitly providing a translation of anything he says in Napaani that's less obvious than the usual greetings; usually he does this by a) marking the Napaani in italics, the b) adding "((Autotrans: <translation>))" afterward.

[Vic Van Meter]

That's probably the best way to go about it.  Otherwise, if you wanted to try to say a greeting in Nepaani, it would just be translated into "hello."  You'd figure that we'd never be able to hear someone intentionally using their own language, and if we did the auto-translator should probably translate it anyway.

[Silas Vitalia]

Gesakaarin is speaking some wisdom in this thread. Super +10 agreeing with just about all of those posts.


I guess the real thing for me with individual world-building / background creation.... it has to be convincing.

You say you are an Imperial noble and you run a whole continent on X planet? I don't know, do you? Do you act like it? What actions, characterizations, etc are you doing to make this believable and natural for people who interact with you?  Do these things make me think you do these things, or do you act like a teenager who can't even run a coffee machine let alone thousands of serfs?

Some of you RPers are AWESOME at this sort of thing, and I eat up every bit of backstory coming out of your mouths.

Some of you, I don't believe a single word.

I'll put it this way:  The more of a special snowflake you want to be, the more convincing you have to be.  And backing it up with corroborating in-game metrics goes a LONG way to making things believable. 

[Gesakaarin]

A lot of these thoughts come from some moments of introspection as to why, increasingly, I've become more and more cynical as regards roleplaying (No doubt some think by now, oh that Veik/Gesakaarin always trolling) but really one of the major reasons is that CCP PF can already at times cause having to live in an Orwellian existence (I just need to remember the introduction of PI features and the amount of character birth planets all of sudden going from verdant plains to fiery hell-holes) where retcons have to cause collectively tossing things down the memory hole.

What some of the player-made, world-building, efforts do for me is to make a background that is already nominally Orwellian to become almost schizophrenic in its potential inconsistency. I might give an example and submit:

1) A player in one year, world-builds a planet in depth and it is accepted as "truth" by some players.

2) A player in later years, without realizing the previous efforts, world-builds the same planet in depth and it is accepted as "truth" by some players.

Now what happens when these two "truths" collide completely by coincidence and happenstance?

This to me is the real risk when players create unverified and unsubstantiated claims in the creation of their world-building fiction as incontrovertible truth. When the only real legitimacy is by other players accepting it as truth, then what happens when it contradicts another version of the truth?

This is why I'm seriously considering the potential value of continued interaction with other roleplayers because it feels like I'm given the option of where I can just simply ignore them and their creative efforts like it doesn't exist because I still love and enjoy playing Eve as it is, getting drunk, pew pewing and just playing the game while easily rationalizing everything I do in an internally consistent framework. Or, alternatively, try and exist in some sort of Kafkian alternate dimension where it's like I'm not sure if I'm roleplaying for the sake of some kind of existential self-parody or self-satire while discussing with other characters who seem to act like holocaust-deniers whose entire rhetorical repertoire was gained from the, "Logical Fallacy 101" classes given by Fox News.

I mean, damn, I have to talk with enough delusional, irrational and illogical people in the real world I'm not sure if my idea of, "Realistic RP" is as enjoyable to me when such people end up using world-building to create characters that end up causing both my own character and myself as a player to go, "Oh dear God, what the fuck is this shit right here?"

I wouldn't say it's one person, group of people, that's caused me to reach this conclusion as much as noticing what appears to be a collective trend to me. I mean, I can at least understand if people fuck around when they treat Eve like the game it is. What I don't think I can grasp is people honestly, intently, and with purpose seek to create fiction about their characters and the world that all I can respond with is, "Not sure if retarded."

Then again, these days it feels like given my present state of mind as regards RP and RP'ers in general I should just recuse myself from any form of future interaction or participation with the "community", just for my own enjoyment of the game. 

I give up.

[Lyn Farel]

I don't think I disagree with the logic behind...

I think that to avoid that kind of issues the idea is to keep it to regional scale. What I mean by regional is that as long as your world building remains smaller than the smallest Eve entity ingame, like for example a regional state on a federal world, it does not impact said smallest ingame entity (the planet) enough to prevent anyone to build upon it too. That way, it remains mostly harmless and the worst that you risk is to see CCP retconing it by radically introducing some weird PF about that world's past in particular.

[Esna Pitoojee]

What some of the player-made, world-building, efforts do for me is to make a background that is already nominally Orwellian to become almost schizophrenic in its potential inconsistency. I might give an example and submit:

1) A player in one year, world-builds a planet in depth and it is accepted as "truth" by some players.

2) A player in later years, without realizing the previous efforts, world-builds the same planet in depth and it is accepted as "truth" by some players.

Now what happens when these two "truths" collide completely by coincidence and happenstance?

That would be... freakishly awkward. Not sure if it's happened yet; if it has... I dunno. See if they can work it out?

[Laria Raven]

Thanks everyone for interesting thoughts, even if it looked like the crew debate was about to start up again for a bit.

I think I'm going to put a skills and abilities thing onto my char post on the forum here. Not really giving away any secrets, but just things that have been established in RP (like: Laria is completely awful at physical combat)

I do think it's important to realise that we create a shared world, and that people may bring into that things that aren't the way you'd do them, or that don't quite mesh up with PF perfectly. Particularly because PF is quite spread out and not very well organised, and if I have to read TBL again to notice an aside on page 97 that contradicts something, that's being too attentive to detail for me.

And I guess that all RP is a "best effort" thing. You find people who RP in a way you like and RP with them, but sometimes it's worth going with the flow.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

I mean this in the best of ways, but... Don't you think you might taking this all a bit too seriously, Veik?

I'm not really sure if you're being critical of CCP for making the setting the way it is or for roleplayers approaching it the way they do (or both), but roleplay is, when you strip the trappings, basically just a bunch of people goofing off and playing make-believe for fun. Obviously it's not always going to make complete sense or be totally consistant. If it was, it'd be dull.

So if I see someone roleplaying something that contradicts other player fluff, or even the game lore, I just shrug it off. It's just a game, after all. As players, we have the power to turn a blind eye or simply ignore things that we don't care for, as long as they don't directly effect us in game. Hell, some people even do that with CCP stuff, and that's fine - It's all just some stuff some dude probably wrote down without much thought, when you get to it. Whatever leads to their personal enjoyment. Why let it affect you?

I think I said this sometime before, but it's naive to think that 10 different people are going to form a cohesive vision of the world of Eve in their heads between them - Everyone is going to percieve aspects of the setting differently and fill in the blanks in their own ways. But that doesn't mean you can't have fun in the times where/with the people who your perceptions do overlap and just tastefully avoid the rest.

Once you give up the idea that you're trying to control a single person in a consistant "world" (a world that, quite simply, doesn't exist) and accept that you're just making some interactive fiction that may or may not align with other peoples interactive fiction, the whole thing becomes a lot more relaxing.

[Etienne Saissore]

1) A player in one year, world-builds a planet in depth and it is accepted as "truth" by some players.

2) A player in later years, without realizing the previous efforts, world-builds the same planet in depth and it is accepted as "truth" by some players.

Now what happens when these two "truths" collide completely by coincidence and happenstance?

A player in later years> /me laughs. "Man that's awesome. I wish I would have come up with that."
A player in one year> "No yours is far better than mine. Much more detailed and we didn't even consider half of the PF which is known these days."
A player in later years> "Was there a story behind this difference between our planets?"
A player in one year> "Yeah, ..." *a wordy explanation follows*
A player in later years> /me more laughter. "Yeah I could roll with that. Can I send it to those who are involved in this project?"
A player in one year> "Sure, no problem."

[Makkal]

I've always had this anxiety that someone is going to demand I 'prove' Makkal's background. I picked a world in Kingdom space and said that Makkal's great uncle rules it as a Holder. Then I worked out a history for it and the Hanaya clan.

I consider this a bit different from claiming to be a representative of the Theology Council who has converted millions and somehow shrugged off State regulations.

At the same time, yes, Makkal is another amarr PC with a noble title and there are a far few of us.

[Seriphyn]

I do find it cool people are brave enough to "claim" a planet...Elusenia is on Vale IV but just an island around the size of Great Britain.

I may have received less flak if Elusenia was pre-existing as a backstory element than newly-settled. Going that path may have been more effective in giving the impression that Seriphyn has no control over the government (which is true regardless).

[Silas Vitalia]

Again it's all about scale I think.

Seri's worldbuilding was of a certain scale that didn't effect other players, no harm no foul in my opinion.

"My uncle is a powerful holder on a backwater planet you've never heard of in lowsec." More ambitious but it's still not setting off my bullshit detectors very much.

"I used to be in the Caldari Navy, I retired with distinction and am now an independent capsuleer."  Sounds good to me.

"I own 35 planets in Federation High Sec and Roden washes my feet every morning."   lol no thanks. 

It's all about scale and what most other RPers would probably see as acceptable, especially based on your character. 

For example say, Pieter, a background in baseliner security, I don't even give it a second though as based on how the man acts and what I see, this seems perfectly legitimate.

Say, Rodj Blake having a very old and established Imperial family and having a team of slaves staying up late every night polishing great aunt clarice's ruby necklace given to her by Hiederaan, also sounds legit.  Just listen to the guy

All about how you walk and talk and how we perceive you.

[Silas Vitalia]

I do find it cool people are brave enough to "claim" a planet...Elusenia is on Vale IV but just an island around the size of Great Britain.

I may have received less flak if Elusenia was pre-existing as a backstory element than newly-settled. Going that path may have been more effective in giving the impression that Seriphyn has no control over the government (which is true regardless).

The only entire planet claiming I will ever acknowledge IC is if your group name is on the system in Null Sec, or if I can see your bank account and you've got a few trillion in there to give it some weight.     Maybe lowsec backwaters, but highsec I highly doubt it.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

I do find it cool people are brave enough to "claim" a planet...Elusenia is on Vale IV but just an island around the size of Great Britain.

I may have received less flak if Elusenia was pre-existing as a backstory element than newly-settled. Going that path may have been more effective in giving the impression that Seriphyn has no control over the government (which is true regardless).

The only entire planet claiming I will ever acknowledge IC is if your group name is on the system in Null Sec, or if I can see your bank account and you've got a few trillion in there to give it some weight.     Maybe lowsec backwaters, but highsec I highly doubt it.

You mean Evanda isn't really the Princess of Pator? Awwww!