Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Galen Darksmith on 12 Nov 2015, 14:27
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I feel like I've missed a migration, here. I'm just coming back to the game after a break due to RL stuff, and while I'm not a big poster I do like to lurk and see what's going on in the RP scene. However, from the amount of posts it looks like there's not much going on despite the whole Drifters and Amarr Trials arc. Is this place going the way of the old Chatsubo?
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Eh, given that the Amarr trials are very faction exclusive and Drifters being Amarr focused as well, and not all that interesting to begin with... well, how much activity do you really expect to see? CCP has pretty much shut down my entire faction so why bother with anything but Fallout 4 and Starcraft 2 these days?
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a lot of the discussion about the drifters and the amarr trials, has kind of been sucked onto other discussion venues, such as podcasts, twitch streams, slack channels, and so on. Much of this discussion is OOC, possibly because a lot of the involved people aren't the IGS RP focused people, and it seems a bit like people may be a bit fatigued about having discussed it OOC, and don't feel like re-hashing the same discussion in RP.
So, um, I dunno really. I've not been doing so much myself, feel a bit of like, writers block or something, not having so much in the way of ideas for things as I used to.
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I've been pretty busy with work, but I pretty much quit RPing after CCP and Falcon made it damn clear that the only reason the Caldari and Amarr factions exist is to get their asses kicked. I still do something now and then, but I've lost any enthusiasm for RPing.
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I've been pretty busy with work, but I pretty much quit RPing after CCP and Falcon made it damn clear that the only reason the Caldari and Amarr factions exist is to get their asses kicked. I still do something now and then, but I've lost any enthusiasm for RPing.
Join me. Be a space cowboy.
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I agree with Louella. People have moved on other venues like slack, podcasts, etc. The core of the RP has also shifted, between heavy RPers like us, and lighter RPers that are mostly lore afficionados and probably form now the majority of it.
Also, it's always the same issue really: before that Amarr focus the Amarr have been left into oblivion for years, while the focus was on gallente/caldari on Caldari Prime. On faction or two have the spotlight, and the rest gets put in a coma state until it's their turn again.
That, and a certain part of us old RPers, have pretty much stopped caring that much about a lore we deem more and more nonsensical and clumsily handed.
Also yeah, the focus has also shifted heavily onto drifters and Anoikis stuff, and while some things are interesting in themselves, it radically changes everything on the kind of RP we get, as well as might not interest everyone of us here either (and more lore afficionados).
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I've been pretty busy with work, but I pretty much quit RPing after CCP and Falcon made it damn clear that the only reason the Caldari and Amarr factions exist is to get their asses kicked. I still do something now and then, but I've lost any enthusiasm for RPing.
Pity, that. Me, I don't see any reason to care who wins or loses the metaplot.
I've got a part to play, and miserable tragedy's as good as glorious awesomeness for that. Better, even.
I do notice the quiet on Backstage, though.
Edit:
Also, I'm betting a few people are distracted with Fallout.
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Yup. I don't mind losing as long as the losing itself is fun and immersive. The problem with Tony G era was that the losses he imposed were hamfisted and made no sense.
Also yes, Aria. Fallout is all I've been doing since it's come out. Probably the same for a lot of people this week.
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There isn't a new forum, but it is quieter in general. Pretty quiet ingame too fwiw.
Likely a combination of factors, which people have already listed. Slack is a thing for people who prefer more immediate chat-like discussions, Fallout/SC2 just got released, a number of us were (or still are) involved in the Succession Trials...
The win/lose thing is nonsense, imo. The State is not in a 'losing' position right now and hasn't been for a while. The death of the zombie spacelesbian princess was a good thing, not a bad thing, for the storyline. Arguments can be made about the quality of the manner in which she bit it, but her death itself will bring interesting changes to the table.
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I.. may be wrong but I think that Vic was more hinting at bad portrayal than victory/defeat? On that I could agree.
And personally, well yeah, I don't connect much since there is nobody in EUTZ anyway. I moved on another MMO where we aren't lying to ourselves saying that RP is all fine and as good as ever. I'm not saying that RP is dead, Eve is dying, etc, but RP sure is slowly collapsing.
It's normal. It happens eventually.
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Yeah, it's not about winning or losing as such, as it is the portrayal. Good work, we're officially raving psychotic maniacs now, on top of being flat out stupid. Of course, that was back when we actually existed in New Eden. I'm pretty sure that Elder "let's fuck off to wherever" plan has been put into effect because we certainly aren't doing anything in New Eden.
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I.. may be wrong but I think that Vic was more hinting at bad portrayal than victory/defeat? On that I could agree.
Well, it's both. I've written about it extensively elsewhere, but it basically comes down to "every faction should be good at something". There should be different benefits, RP-wise, from signing up with one faction or another. You know, the State is supposed to be a corporate slightly-fascist nation, but also not too bad a place to live, the strongest military, and a great industrial base. Gallente are flighty fame-seekers, but also the freest nation in New Eden, commercially powerful, have a huge population, and a very stable system, not to mention being the cultural force in the cluster.
And so forth.
Instead what we got was the CEO calling the State essentially "space-nazis" and CCP Falcon (as well as the rest of the team) apparently deciding that the Federation needed to be the best at everything. And that, to make it absolutely clear, everyone has to be railroaded into that. So we get the Battle of Caldari Prime, where CCP notices that their side is losing, so they simply spawn Moros's at 0 until they win (ask I-RED about that if you want an earful). This is just an example, keep in mind that the news articles haven't been a panacea either. Incidentally, this came after a long series of events of Heth and the State completely failing, which I get, but it was basically punishing RPers for something they never wanted in the first place (except for Kim, I suppose). And then we can't even help topple the guy ourselves, no, it has to be the Gallente. Yay.
So, after that, they then pull one of the most "What-the-ever-loving-fuck" moves in EvE RP history, with Colelie. You can justify everything, if you want, but the most likely explanation is that after the Federation had its way with Amarr (Kador), and Caldari, it was time to prove that they were better than those damn tribals, too.
My personal theory is that CCP saw falling subscriber numbers and figured that the Federation, (as the "good guys" and the democracy, which people from America and Western Europe would theoretically identify with more) would bring in more players and keep more players if they made it the winner at everything it did and used it as the public RP front. Good luck with that.
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Pity, that. Me, I don't see any reason to care who wins or loses the metaplot.
I've got a part to play, and miserable tragedy's as good as glorious awesomeness for that. Better, even.
I do notice the quiet on Backstage, though.
I don't want to be mean, but it's slightly disingenuous to argue that I should be less invested in the metaplot when your own character essentially isn't.
Let me be clear: I'm not invested in the plot as a person, in RL. In RL, I do not give a good goddamn about the State, or the EvE cluster. But I did make the decision to have my character invested in the State. Yes, in retrospect, dumb, but a lot of people made the mistake of not rolling a Gallente character if they wanted to be loyalists, it seems.
And even more to the point, sure, I can take miserable tragedy. The problem is when it is year after year of miserable tragedy compounded by mind-boggling stupidity. Actually, mostly stupidity.
I chose a character invested in the State because I liked the idea of a shadowrun-ish style corpacracy backed up with a powerful military. I accepted the downsides of that. What I didn't realize was that I was signing up with the Always Losing For Reasons of Stupidity faction. If that had been advertised, I wouldn't have invested my character in factional loyalties.
Well, maybe CCP will change things. In any case, the character Vikarion is too invested in the State and I don't think it's reasonable to try to pull him away from that. So, basically, except for a little unrelated stuff here and there, I'm out.
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Pretty much everything you just said can be equally applied to the Tribals. The only faction that doesn't get stomped into the ground on a regular basis are the Amarr, and the few times they do get hit it's by the space magic Dark
Eldar Jove.
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Whoop-de-fucking-doo, another round of the misery olympics.
Obliquely, though, I guess that's as good an answer to the original post's question.
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I don't want to be mean, but it's slightly disingenuous to argue that I should be less invested in the metaplot when your own character essentially isn't.
Arguable. On both scores. Aria's more invested than might be apparent. Begging your pardon, being, to her own mind, "neutral" doesn't make her immune. It makes her a leaf on the goddamn hurricane.
Even if she weren't, the quality of the metaplot affects us all-- especially those of us actively exploring all aspects of it.
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Whoop-de-fucking-doo, another round of the misery olympics.
Seconded.
I'm done, folks. See you in a different topic.
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Remember, you don't get to complain because if you invest in a faction or don't enjoy how things are going, you're doing it wrong and it's your fault.
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Pretty much everything you just said can be equally applied to the Tribals. The only faction that doesn't get stomped into the ground on a regular basis are the Amarr, and the few times they do get hit it's by the space magic Dark Eldar Jove.
For once they don't play the space buffoons... When I started playing, they were constantly the idiots of the village.
Not that it has changed a lot though. The Imperial Navy is still as incompetent as ever. But maybe they could actually play on that! I wouldn't mind to get news like the gallente had in the past about the derelict state of their navy. It would actually make sense, for once.
I mean, have you seen how they are played by current dev actors ? Like W40K inquisitors. All of them. And it's not only the Amarr. It's every notorious NPC that gets to interact with capsuleers by the way. CONCORD was no exception, as well as others. It seems that the current actors behind can only curbstomp capsuleers in an abrasive manner.
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Well, if they'd kept the WH40K Inquisitors among the Amarr I'd actually be allright with that. It's suitable for the faction, in public engagements with "heretics and heathens". It's weird to see the chatlogs when other factions' characters are being weird like that.
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Whoop-de-fucking-doo, another round of the misery olympics.
Obliquely, though, I guess that's as good an answer to the original post's question.
I guess so. Thanks for the heads up.
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Well, if they'd kept the WH40K Inquisitors among the Amarr I'd actually be allright with that. It's suitable for the faction, in public engagements with "heretics and heathens". It's weird to see the chatlogs when other factions' characters are being weird like that.
It just starts to get properly annoying when it's the only thing left around.
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This reminds me of conversations in channels where there were Gallentean, Caldari, Amarrian, and Minmatar folks all describing how their own chosen factions sucked compared to others and CCP had some kind of bias against them.
Eventually you realize it's just something akin to people wanting to play underdogs and play to the narrative of how they're managing to overcome the adversity of CCP persecution.
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You've got it the wrong way around. CCP doesn't persecute any factions, they just favor one or two at a time. They've just never seemed to get the hang of including all four into any storyline, and even when they do two at a time they favor one over the other. Lately it's the Amarr getting all the love, both with the
Dark Eldar Jove Drifters and the Heir trials arc etc.
Even if anyone wanted to be the underdog, it's hard to be one when you're not even in the game dejour. It requires participation, which currently means "play Amarr".
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Whoop-de-fucking-doo, another round of the misery olympics.
Obliquely, though, I guess that's as good an answer to the original post's question.
It's nice to know that I'm "doing it wrong".
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There's some amount of private/small group RP.
Public RP seems a bit less active than in the past.
Also, public RP, I think maybe in recent times, there's been an element of "Flanderization (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization)" of interactions between various characters.
Aldrith's hair, for example, is mentioned more often than other parts of his personality - poetry, being a Ni-Kunni in PIE, and so on.
The somewhat stagnant nature of other parts of the storyline may also have some effect on RP. The Faction War, for example, hasn't been the empire-shattering event that it was hyped as. Incursions haven't been the civilisation-shattering event that it was hyped as. Drifters probably won't be the civilisation-shattering event they're currently hyped as.
In the case of Faction War, the threat of Minmatar might as well be included on the "And now, the weather" section of Amarr Certified News, because it's not really headline material anymore, and arguable if it has ever been that, save for a half-dozen occasions over the... 7 ? 8 ? years of Faction war.
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To counteract this, I'd suggest striking up conversations with other players, asking about their other interests. Many of them have interests listed in their character sheet threads here on Backstage. Others, you might have to find out about their interests from asking them first.
Ofc, that's not necessarily applicable to everyone. Not everyone is a "people person", or particularly interested in conversation.
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Lately it's the Amarr getting all the love, both with the Dark Eldar Jove Drifters and the Heir trials arc etc.
If that's the kind of 'love' you want, I'd be more than glad to have CCP Falcon's attention turning to the faction of your choice. No, Amarr are not supposed to be W40K inquisitors - or at least they weren't. Just because the current portrayel of Amarr as religious-fenatic-nutbags plays into your one-dimensional perception of the Empire, it not any more close to the promise at character creation that Amarr are highly educated. An Amarrian Inquisitor should work more subtly or at least with more refined methods than a W40K one.
You must be very desperate for CCP 'love' if you mistake any attention CCP hands out for such. I wish you a dozen more Colelies to give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Or maybe then you'll realize that not all attention is good.
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So you're saying you're not pleased with the trials, the further focus on Amarr world-building and advancement of the storyline, and fixing the TonyGderp etc? Getting events, lots of incentives for RP, fueling in-space actions, attracting more attention from the rest of the playerbase to replenish or recruit new roleplayers and so on and so forth?
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Am I pleased with succession trials where Khanid is allowed to compete simply because there are 'reasons' (and that's all the reason given, that there are 'reasons')? Where Khanid then goes on to employ someone as champion who's openly a blood raider?
Am I pleased with an focus on Amarr world-building where the idea is to portray the Amarr as religious-fanatic-nutbags? Where on a whim it is decided to give the Tetrimon an important part in the succession trials without any good reason for it, just to 'advance' the storyline? Where the direction of an Empire that supposed to be changing slow is changed quicker that you beat your eye-lash? Where the supposedly best educated people of the cluster act like they have never recieved any education to speak of?
Am I pleased with 'fixing the Tony Gderp' by derp that is on a similar, if not even bigger magnitude, by having her assasinated in-space by the Drifters, when a fleet of assembled players couldn't possibly act fast enough to even get the feeling that they could have tried to do something about it?
No, no and No. I'm not pleased and I don't see how you could expect anyone to be.
Getting ervents for the sake of events isn't helping anyone. The incentives for RP are imho if at all incentives - and I strongly doubt that they are to be considered that clearly - then incentives to comparatively shallow RP. How great the in-space actions worked we saw with how the Drifters one-shot Jamyl. And as to the attention, it is not really it serves replenish and recruit new roleplayers. The roleplayers we get that portray Amarr characters with depth to them we would've surely gained without such attention.
CCP Falcon never made a secret out of his one-sided view of the Amarr and now he's in the position to push his view. He's doing so. CCP's policy on story line development didn't change a bit with getting rid of TonyG. TonyG was never the real problem. The people responsible at CCP made clear they liked his fiction and so it goes on in the same vein - just that TonyG and particular features of the fiction identified as 'his' had to serve as a scape goat to please the player base.
Again. No, I'm not pleased.
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Hmm, I'm sorry to hear that. My own faction being ignored entirely and damn near blocked out of the developments is one thing if at least what's being done benefits others. Of course, I disagree with the notion that the Amarr Empire shouldn't be portrayed as religious-fanatic-nutbags, because that's exactly what I've seen since my first days in the game, both from the PF and the players. The IGS and in-game channels have pretty much had only that from the Amarr side, if you're not on the inside yourself, so the WH40K portrayal from the actors seem very consistent with what the players themselves portray in public.
As for quick change in the Empire, that's just the unfortunate reality of this being a game manifesting. We don't actually have several centuries of real time to see changes happen in this game, so (necessary) changes will unfortunately have to be somewhat abrupt.
I think you're a bit quick to throw out "one-sided view of the Amarr", though. That there'll be difference in opinion how factions are portrayed and how they should be portrayed happens for all four and the outlaws. I'm a little more of the opinion that you can't really have it both ways. Amarr are very much based on theocracy, religion, zealotry and so on, which makes it a bit odd if you're also going to ignore the downsides of this kind of society. The Caldari have the downsides of hyper-capitalism down pat, and the Fed has the obvious issues their hyper-"freedom" brings down upon them. There needs to be balance in how these societies are portrayed and all four needs to pay the price for their particular fields of "excellence".
For the hyper-religious Empire, that means zealotry, religious fanaticism and so on. That's pretty much exactly what we get from the players already, so I can't fault the actors for consistency.
Besides, given how utterly stupid they've portrayed officials from the other factions, I'm not entirely sure what else could be expected.
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I'm not saying that the other factions are protrayed any better by CCP. Rather I personally think CCP consistently is bad at storytelling and portraying all factions in a believable, nuanced and balanced way. That they place more attention at certain factions at one point in time and next to no attention to the others doesn't help with this either: Not the factions they ignore but neither the ones they pay attention to.
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You've got it the wrong way around. CCP doesn't persecute any factions, they just favor one or two at a time. They've just never seemed to get the hang of including all four into any storyline, and even when they do two at a time they favor one over the other. Lately it's the Amarr getting all the love, both with the Dark Eldar Jove Drifters and the Heir trials arc etc.
Even if anyone wanted to be the underdog, it's hard to be one when you're not even in the game dejour. It requires participation, which currently means "play Amarr".
Eh, having experienced it myself I honestly just think there's a tendency to get all eschatological once a certain level of bittervet has been reached -- "I'm not enjoying the game anymore, so no one else can, and to start I'll tell people why everything is terrible and shit."
It's not even really anything to do with RP but I think more once people have done the same content and reach a dilemma where on the hand they have invested into a gameplay choice and people while also having reached a point of boredom or lack of interest with that gameplay/content.
Roleplayers will start saying the lore is terrible and shit; pvpers will start saying the meta is terrible and shit; pvers will start saying missions/incursions/drifters is terrible and shit, etc.
Thing is, if the only visible discussions are a bunch of bittervets talking about how the game is terrible and shit then why would people who do enjoy the game want to participate in that kind of environment in the first place?
If it seems most discussions on backstage are people talking about why the lore is shit, CCP devs are shit, and roleplay is shit then why would anyone who wants to have fun... well, give a shit to enter those discussions or start any?
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Why indeed. Honestly though, I don't really see how it's anyone's job to blow sunshine and happiness up the arse of anyone else. These are pretty legitimate issues people are having with CCP and the way the game is going, and just ignoring it in favor of a glassy grin isn't going to do anyone any favors.
If you have positive experiences and discussions in mind, you should probably post them. Complaining about complaining isn't going to reduce complaining.
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Well if people feel the need to have a whinge then why not create an entire thread dedicated for that express purpose instead of trying to turn every discussion into a personal axe to grind?
The question posed here in this thread was, "Is there a new OOC forum up" and the apparent inactivity of discussion. I simply pointed out that if every discussion didn't devolve into the provision of Schadenfreude and salt, there might be more of it and of a higher quality than, "I feel CCP hates my faction and I feel the need to express this opinion at any and every opportunity I am able."
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This thread is going places, fast :roll:
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This thread is going places, fast :roll:
Mmhm.
Well if people feel the need to have a whinge then why not create an entire thread dedicated for that express purpose instead of trying to turn every discussion into a personal axe to grind?
The question posed here in this thread was, "Is there a new OOC forum up" and the apparent inactivity of discussion. I simply pointed out that if every discussion didn't devolve into the provision of Schadenfreude and salt, there might be more of it and of a higher quality than, "I feel CCP hates my faction and I feel the need to express this opinion at any and every opportunity I am able."
You may not like it, but providing a reason for why there's less roleplay discussion on the board is pretty much exactly what you could expect when the question is being answered.
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Well if people feel the need to have a whinge then why not create an entire thread dedicated for that express purpose instead of trying to turn every discussion into a personal axe to grind?
The question posed here in this thread was, "Is there a new OOC forum up" and the apparent inactivity of discussion. I simply pointed out that if every discussion didn't devolve into the provision of Schadenfreude and salt, there might be more of it and of a higher quality than, "I feel CCP hates my faction and I feel the need to express this opinion at any and every opportunity I am able."
Well, to be perfectly honest with ourselves, when something is dead/dying/collapsing because of negative reasons, then it was to be expected for them to get out of the can of worms once again.
I expected it as soon as I read the OP, and yeah, I indulged on them, mea culpa. I tried to explain why we are in such a state to my eyes, and I will certainly not change my opinion for the sake of politically correct discussion..
Now then, I think CCP actors have stated their intentions (and how they dislike TonyG fiction and want to get rid of it), and what they seem to do goes in that direction. However, and I can't change my tastes on the new storyline and I don't feel that it's especially better than what we had in TEA. We have some great wiki articles and work from Mercury folks, and overall, the infodumps and lore fiction is really good. I think the crux of the problem lies in the portrayal. I just think that CCP are terrible at GM-ing and roleplay, and that's the issue.
Look at the trials for example. That's a really good incentive, and rather innovative. The storytelling around, however, is grotesque.
Edit : and yes, again, I think there is a huge divide between the current lore afficionados that do not RP like us, or the same way, and the heavy RPers of that community. And we are the minority. CCP don't cater to us.
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On the Amarr = W40K, I think there might be a conflation between several things.
Saying that the only thing that transpires from Amarr player interpretation is W40K is rather sad to hear since equating the Amarr with the Imperium to begin with, is what I would consider bad RP and understanding of the lore in the first place, and that means that we Amarr loyalists, are thus doing a piss poor job at it. Well, if that's the case, I don't know what I could add to that. We will have to try to do better i suppose...
It also means that all the progressive groups are non existing entities, void, irrelevant, and that the only Amarrian thing is PIE Inc (who are not even doing W40K interpretation by the way).
I for one think that most of the main RP groups have been answering pretty magnificently on the matter of the Trials, playing their roles like we would expect of good roleplay (especially Khanid loyalists and Eidety).
Overall I think the Trials are a success, and the only gripe I have is like Nico, we fall again in the CCP's stretched mysteries that never get explained and turn the world into a confusion of endlessly cascading improbable feats. Either they don't find the explanations themselves and do it anyway, or either they don't feel the need to make the world more believable because to them, it already is. That can also be either because we have a fundamental disagreement on what is believable and what is not, and what they want for the story and what we don't, or either because they fell into the usual trap of the author not explaining enough for the simple reason that the author already got all the answers, and everything seems perfectly fine to him while it's not to the audience (i'm pretty sure there is a trope for that).
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The fellows who thought that Amarr = Imperium need to read the lore more closely.
My impression of the Amarr Empire based on Source and other lore tidbits is that the Empire society is much closer to a mix of Vatican and Holy Roman Empire (In that the Empire is far less centralised than initially thought and is more of a collection of Princes. The Heirs can be treated as Electors, just the voting is done by fighting each other and that they killed themselves if they lose), with 14-15th century sensibilities and very enlightened understanding in S.T.E.M. Kinda like they had entered a Renaissance period that was still ongoing all the way until past the space age.
The Imperium on the other hand is a deliberate pessimistic take on all the downsides of a theocracy, where all the atrocities done in the name of religion is not only done regularly with no oversight, the atrocious acts are even justified by the setting. It's a different beast compared to the Amarr Empire.
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I expected it as soon as I read the OP, and yeah, I indulged on them, mea culpa. I tried to explain why we are in such a state to my eyes, and I will certainly not change my opinion for the sake of politically correct discussion..
I'm not really talking about political correctness as much as remembering the old chatsubo days where it seemed the only discussion that ever happened was in its bitching section. If the only discourse appears to be particularly negative in nature then that to me limits broader engagement because why would people want to enter into a potentially toxic environment?
As for the portrayal of the Empire itself, well, most of the event/dev actors seem to be in positions of authority and importance so why wouldn't they be... you know, imperious about it?
Although honestly I've been privy to a lot of expressions of opinion over the years that begin like strawman arguments of:
"Everyone thinks my chosen faction is like [Insert negative stereotypes of chosen faction] and this is why everything is terrible."
From all sides, that at this point I can but only shrug at it because I don't know who this everyone is and CCP can only provide the lore but it can't make people read it.
All the Amarr characters I have interacted with such as Lunarisse Aspenstar, Samira Kernher, and Gaven Lok'ri have never given me the impression they come from a grimdark space theocracy full of spehss mareens, myself.
Though I probably don't have a bigger picture of it since I'm a self-imposed pariah. :lol:
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I can't say I disagree on that..
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CCP 'borrowed' liberally from many sci fi IPs, but 40k would be farthest down the list, if it were even there at all (imo it is not).
CCP IP development started with mainlining Babylon 5, Syndicate, etc, but I don't believe 40k was on that list.
Anyway way off topic. Yes forum is still here but more coasting along than soaring with the eagles
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If the only discourse appears to be particularly negative in nature then that to me limits broader engagement because why would people want to enter into a potentially toxic environment?
I'm not quite sure how you make this argumentative jump from 'discourse that appears negative in nature' to 'a potentially toxic environment'. Just because people voice their frustration or critique or deny that everything is bright and shiny it doesn't follow that the environment is toxic. I don't know where you're from, but where I live an environment is percieved as toxic if you're not allowed to complain - or simply don't have the time for it because you're busy solving the problems.
"Everyone thinks my chosen faction is like [Insert negative stereotypes of chosen faction] and this is why everything is terrible."
This is only a straw man if it is not true. Also, unless I'm mistaken, no one here gave that argument anyway...
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If the only discourse appears to be particularly negative in nature then that to me limits broader engagement because why would people want to enter into a potentially toxic environment?
I'm not quite sure how you make this argumentative jump from 'discourse that appears negative in nature' to 'a potentially toxic environment'. Just because people voice their frustration or critique or deny that everything is bright and shiny it doesn't follow that the environment is toxic. I don't know where you're from, but where I live an environment is percieved as toxic if you're not allowed to complain - or simply don't have the time for it because you're busy solving the problems.
"Everyone thinks my chosen faction is like [Insert negative stereotypes of chosen faction] and this is why everything is terrible."
This is only a straw man if it is not true. Also, unless I'm mistaken, no one here gave that argument anyway...
All I'm saying is that there is a difference between criticism and when criticism becomes the prevalent pattern of discussion. For myself it just feeds on itself: those not interested in constant criticism will recuse themselves from discussion until it reaches a point that the only people participating are those with their axes to grind in public.
Then any new players or those interested in roleplay or lore discussion will come and probably think, "Wow, this forum just seems like a bunch of people whinging all the time."
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Unnecessarily one-dimensional thinking by some players has caused other players to not seek out this forum as a primary place of contact and discussion.
The Warhamarr40k depiction is an example.
Amarr is an expansionist religion. There are two sides to the coin. One side are the crusaders, who reclaim with the proverbial fire and the sword. The other side are the missionaries, who reclaim with the 'hearts and minds' approach.
But some would deny that there are two sides to the coin. That the crusaders are all there are, and all there should be. They shout down or otherwise undermine players attempting to play the other side of the coin.
And when the other side of the coin is denied, where is there to go ? Only one place.
The Edge. Much edginess. Bismuth, even.
This happens to several factions. Amarr is just the one that's been particularly mentioned in this thread.
Let people play the other sides of their coins. Where is the harm ?
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For this to be constructive, there needs to be some examples and a little bit of fingerpointing, because I'm pretty sure no one here considers themselves to be undermining other avenues of approach. Granted, most of us are incapable of it due to not even being in the faction, but still.
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For this to be constructive, there needs to be some examples and a little bit of fingerpointing, because I'm pretty sure no one here considers themselves to be undermining other avenues of approach. Granted, most of us are incapable of it due to not even being in the faction, but still.
you can undermine people's rp without being in the same faction.
all you have to do is constantly post on forums about how "x faction rp is dead.", even when other people who play that faction are present.
If the loudest voices say "x faction is dead", then passers-by won't see the people who are playing x faction. Which undermines those peoples efforts.
if you have 1 person doing x faction rp, and 5 people happen by that might be interested in x faction rp, and there's 1 or more people loudly going "x faction rp is dead", then chances are, those 5 aren't going to see the 1 person that is doing x faction rp, and so those 5 people are likely to look elsewhere.
So instead of 6 people doing x faction rp, there's 1, and about 3 loudly posting on forums about how x faction rp is dead.
but whatever. it seems people would rather stop other people having fun, than to help others to have fun. So, enjoy, i guess, vOv.
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I seriously doubt anyone's made the claim Amarr RP is dead.
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I seriously doubt anyone's made the claim Amarr RP is dead.
lol.
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So you're saying you're not pleased with the trials, the further focus on Amarr world-building and advancement of the storyline, and fixing the TonyGderp etc? Getting events, lots of incentives for RP, fueling in-space actions, attracting more attention from the rest of the playerbase to replenish or recruit new roleplayers and so on and so forth?
I can't speak for others, but I've been thrilled. It's been a wonderful few months with so many opportunities Amarr side both from CCP/dev actors and from player reactions to same (the 50 plex bounty on Lucas and the Concord drama, the khanid drama earlier this year between players and dev actors led nicely into the trials, the player OOJ cult sprang from the death of the empress, the resulting succession trials, edeity's inclusion in the trials leading to worries of sani sabik infiltration and then at the same time the blood raider event, the drifter invasions, the imperim invasion of providence and the Cult of Max, even Nauplius and the tower bashes, the inclusion of a cerra manor arc in scope news, the same with the peace conference, to name a few). There's been more than a few curve balls my characters have had to adapt/react too.
I know CCP will move to other factions as they seem to cycle through them, but for now I am quite thoroughly enjoying the ride.
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Healthy people avoid this sick community. There is plenty going on in the eve community but the 'progressive' mod team ooc/back stage chase away the exceptional, creative, and healthy people because because they don't conform to the approved group think. Turns out when you censor anyone for thinking outside of the box, the people who think outside the box leave. -Grayson.
http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5097.msg82197#msg82197
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Personally, I think the reason people aren't talking much here has more to do with getting most of their discussions out on tweetfleet.slack rather than any of the arguments I have seen pushed on this thread.
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What Gaven said.
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What Samira and Gaven said.
Slack is just more convenient, faster paced and almost self moderating, in that the real time posting allows quick resolution of misunderstandings. It lacks the permanence of a forum, but for many that seems to be a fair trade.
Personally, I have almost entirely stopped playing eve, except for periodic trading and building, so you'll find me in the Elite Dangerous thread on here, and few other places.
Don't think too hard about this one, because "What will be will be" or the "usual forces of convenience and instant interaction at work", are way more probable answers than imaginary "sickness" in the community (or other equally wild, bait-theories).
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It's certainly not the only reason, but as everyone said it from the start, it surely plays a big part in it.
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Well this was certainly a depressing thread to read. lol.
I can't speak for others, but my personal inactivity in EVE during the past couple months has been due to being a full-time university student. Between class, studying, volunteering, maintaining a social life, trying to maintain a balanced diet/exercise regimen, and sleep, I just haven't had much time for EVE. I will be resubbing again for winter break so I can see all your beautiful faces in-game though, even if only for a little while <3.
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Personally, I think the reason people aren't talking much here has more to do with getting most of their discussions out on tweetfleet.slack rather than any of the arguments I have seen pushed on this thread.
Which, IMHO, is a damn shame because it deprives the rest of us that avoid new social media like the plague from meaningful interaction. And there is some merit for permanence, for example I can look up many, many RP resources from this very forum, I assume in a way that I can't on slack. For instance the main reason it took me so long to register on this very forum is that I consider hiding away from official sites and clique building very detrimental to roleplaying communities in general. I think that people tend to forget; most people do not know of these fansites, and I recall recently that there was discussion about slack on this forum - that even less people are aware of that, even i wouldn't know what it is hadn't I been online the one time I heard it mentioned on the OOC channel, which itself last night was home to about 29 people, about three-four of which I recall actually speaking the whole day, so not exactly a huge crowd.
I guess my point is that, in my opinion, we shouldn't be breaking already a small community to even smaller pieces that are vaguely if even at all aware of the existence and goings on of each other.
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You are not missing much anyway Teinhyr. It may kill social interaction here, but the one on slack is mostly obnoxious whining about each other RP.
And yes, slack is the embodiement of cliquishness.
For now i'm only on the #lore section of it because it can span interesting discussions, but well. Actually the real use I find with that tool is being able to directly ping or talk to people out of the game.
But the RP population sure has shrunk though. A lot.
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"Oh, you're not on the Slack? Well, obviously you only have yourself to blame for not knowing about (insert event here)."
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Slack is an out of game IRC. These are not new, even Backstage has tried having one before but it never took off due to lack of saturation. And it's not much different from logging in and talking about things in in-game channels.
The main issue is having to ask directly for access. Which is Slack's fault rather than ours, because we had an automated signup method but the Slack corporate devs told us to shut it down.
I do think Backstage needs a stickied thread informing about Slack, though, as well as giving names of people to contact for access.
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"Oh, you're not on the Slack? Well, obviously you only have yourself to blame for not knowing about (insert event here)."
This might be a relevant point if CCP ever actually announced events through Slack and not, you know, the news.
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There's more than Live Events happening in Eve. Or so I dearly fucking hope at any rate.
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Actually CCP does double post on slack on the News Channel. Due to the real time nature of it, i tend to learn of news postings there first.
I speak as someone who grudgingly went back to Slack because it was clear I missing things not being on it.
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CCP doesn't do that, the Slack's mod team has an automated bot feature that announces it. That kind of thing could be added to Backstage with some fiddling, if one of the admins knows how.
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Actually CCP does double post on slack on the News Channel. Due to the real time nature of it, i tend to learn of news postings there first.
I speak as someone who grudgingly went back to Slack because it was clear I missing things not being on it.
That's just an RSS feed bot, and it's actually way more annoying and spammy than it is helpful because it reposts every time someone fixes a typo or adds a comma.
If you have a smartphone you should be able to get updates of a similar nature just by subscribing to the RSS feed; following a couple of CCP's general handles on twitter (@eveonline in particular) will also serve the same purpose as they frequently tweet about news posts before the RSS bot catches it.
If people want to get on slack, there are two primary methods. You can sign in with the EVE SSO on this page (https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/tweetfleet-slack-invites/) which will use the email associated with one of your accounts (and tell us a character to use as your default display name), or if you don't trust the SSO, you can contact me or another moderator/admin with a preferred display name and an email address you don't mind being publicly visible.
Invites generally get sent out within an hour or so of being submitted, depending on time of day. AUTZ is a bit sparse.
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I keep up to date over RSS, Slack is/was more a social tool. I still use it with CVA, but I'm using it less and less these days along with my general motivation for eve/rp.
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Healthy people avoid this sick community. There is plenty going on in the eve community but the 'progressive' mod team ooc/back stage chase away the exceptional, creative, and healthy people because because they don't conform to the approved group think. Turns out when you censor anyone for thinking outside of the box, the people who think outside the box leave. -Grayson.
http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5097.msg82197#msg82197
Let me make sure I got this right:
You're linking a thread in which the mod team's first reply is precisely about trying to preserve an atmosphere in which people with out-of-the-box ideas can communicate this without fear of disparagement... in support of your supposition that we as a team stifle same.
c/d?
fakeedit: I've re-read the entire first page of that thread, and nothing there points to the mod team chasing away exceptional or creative posters OR allowing the community to do so, because said posters don't conform to some 'approved group think'.
I don't know what you're on about.
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I don't know OP, every time I end up finding an RP community it seems a lot emptier once I get in than from the outside. I get the impression that everyone who is RP'ing is all hanging out somewhere else but then when you find backstage or slack or the new OOC channel in game it turns out to be empty/mostly inactive as well.
I would honestly just say that in the last 2-3 years RP and the number of RPers has just dropped off. IDK what happened. Maybe it was the slow decline of eve or some old drama everyone but me knows about. I don't think it has anything to do with CCP though. 3 years ago people said RP was dying cause CCP didn't do all the kind of stuff they are doing right now and now people complain its not enough/not good enough.
Still more OOC complaints about RP dying than RP as usual. But things seem pretty okay/normal, you found the RPers. This is what seems to be left from the 'glory days.'
Whenever those were.
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Wat.. oh and what is slack >.>
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Back on topic...
I've been playing for eight years as of last month; about seven to seven and a half of those have been spent as part of the group of EVE players who consider themselves roleplayers. At this point, here's how I see the situation:
Roleplay itself is neither dead nor dying. Neither, to be fair, is the population of players who consider themselves roleplayers. There are people coming and going all the time. What is changing is the ratio of content producers/creators to content consumers within that population.
When I started, there were far more people creating content for people to RP with. And the content being produced was varied, and there was usually at least something for everyone to get involved in that suited them and their character(s). These days, the producers' numbers are dwindling. Low turnout to planned and announced events (if any turnout at all), negative attitudes regarding those events either stated via channels or shitposting on the forums... is it really all that surprising that some are throwing our hands up in the air, going "fuck this," and walking away?
On the other hand, the number of content consumers (for simplicity's sake, I'm considering consumers to be people not hosting events or arcs or the like, and generally just lurking waiting for something to happen that they can react to; it's not the ideal definition but it's close enough for discussion's sake) has not just remained stable over the years but has multiplied in number. There's lots of people out there waiting to do stuff... but with the reduced number of people creating content, the variety of that content has also shrunk, and so many of the consumers don't have content that "fits" them.
It's a bit of a self-feeding cycle. The more content producers that get discouraged by low/poor response to the events and arcs they put time and effort into, the fewer events and arcs there will be for the content consumers. The fewer content producers there are creating stuff for people to do, the smaller the likelihood that what stuff is still being created is going to "fit" the content consumers out there. And the fewer content consumers that "fit" the stuff being created for them... the higher the chance that content producers will stop bothering to keep trying.
The obvious solution, of course, is to just have more people stepping up and creating content.
But it requires people to put in time and effort, and let's face it... we've got a lot of lazy (within this context) people among the roleplayer population.
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Wat.. oh and what is slack >.>
Some kind of Twitter-esque thingy. I was invited into a Gallente militia slack where in real time they announce fleet ops.
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OP asks why the community seems dried up. I replied with the truth which is the community acts like jerks (particularly with heavy handed moddin) and it drives people away.
A point undeniably on topic, if not a pretty one.
People rebuttle, with snark and not logic- but they too are still on topic.
Some fellow offers a very clearly on topic counter rebuttle with citations and logical argument - albeit in broken English.
Modding something that was clearly and undeniably on topic on the grounds of it being 'off topic' just because it's an unpopular argument IS A JERK MOVE. Do you see the irony? I know you do because your one of the smart ones. You just gave Miz his\her needed citation.
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Publius was banned, permanently, a couple years ago, for as stated in the posts I removed, evading bans and moderator action in response to personal attacks and other rule violations.
Removing his posts is neither censorship nor "heavy handed", but enforcement of a ban on a person trying to evade a ban.
Further discussion of that particular matter has a special subforum for it, and further posts in this thread on the subject will be moderated and/or moved there accordingly.
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Banning someone who was sidestepping a ban with a new account, for doing exactly the same things he did before? Yeah, clearly this is "Critical thinking, reason, logic, ethics and general human decency. The mod teams especially harsh on that last one though - so be mindful before you light up."
No, they did not give me the [Citation Needed] because they have to this day never banned anyone for critical thinking, reason, logic, ethics or general human decency. There's definitely been mods derpin' more than once in the history of Backstage, but don't try and use this very much legitimate ban as an example against them. In this case, Morwen allowed that ridiculous charade for a damn sight longer than I would have, given how quickly it became apparent it was a previously well known shitposter trying to circumvent a previous (and still very much legitimate) ban.
That this topic was also pruned is an entirely different matter, as the discussion in this particular thread was not on topic and frankly didn't contribute anything.
I dislike a lot of the moderation here, this is not in any way a secret to any regulars, but let's not start shitting on them when they're doing their job right.
Edit: Derp, didn't spot Morpost. Feel free to prune/catacomb as necessary.
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Edit: Derp, didn't spot Morpost. Feel free to prune/catacomb as necessary.
(http://img.pandawhale.com/99024-Ill-allow-it-gif-Senor-Chang-C-7b0K.gif)
... this time.
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That gif seriously looks infatuated with authority..
For the record, my post linked in the catacombs now on MRA vs feminism was worthy of moderation. Why it wasn't moderated, I don't know.
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The level of wut and derail in this thread is too damn high.
Anyways, on a more relevant point, I ate a packet of crisps this lunchtime. They were cheese and onion, and I read the slack while eating them. Slack seems more enjoyable while eating crisps.
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I also had cheese and onion crisps. However, not while reading slack. I was busy writing a dull, dull report.
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[admin]Enough.[/admin]