Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Silas Vitalia on 28 Sep 2016, 09:08
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I like to poke my head back in every 6 months or so, I see they did the coronation yesterday? Doesn't look like much drama? They still planning to kill all the heirs? I saw they had some npc hunts for rogue Amarr disputing a dirty lowborn Udorian taking the throne?
Shakor in attendance, odd? I'm not remembering some of the PF here but isn't he considered a terrorist by the Amarr authorities for much of his actions before assuming a leadership position in the Republic?
How's thangs, capsuleers?
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Shakor was invited, as is tradition, because he's a head of state.
To just about everyone's great surprise, he accepted the invitation.
Maybe diplomatic immunity protects him from being grabbed by the MIO. For now.
The Shathol'Syn ritual is on Friday.
Things are OK, I guess.
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Roleplay-wise it's more of the same really.
Public RP is the usual shithole of everyone wanting to subscribe to whatever alternate reality vision they have of the lore they want to interpret that no one has any idea what is going on.
Others and especially the long-term vets who might provide the kind of institutional memory necessary to create some kind of solid collaborative endeavours are all doing private RP/burned out/quit.
So it's basically just shitposting and drama in public or in private stuff with your friends that don't make you want to stick a fork in your eye.
So about the same really for the past 3+ years.
Thank God for OGB changes though. ^_^
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Heirs be dead as a can of spam just like Jamyl. See the new chronicle, "Sunset".
I'm still active, just sitting in the background working on my own stuff for the most part. Masque's still available for people who want to use it for events, and I'm around if people have a need for Morwen for their own arcs. Just a matter of people poking me (or her) about it.
Public stuff is hit or miss in general. Some days it's good and interesting, other days it's drama and trash. Often (unfortunately) it depends on who's involved.
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So about the same really for the past 3+ years.
Past decade, easily.
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So about the same really for the past 3+ years.
Past decade, easily.
To be honest, in the past 10 years it feels like an inverse has happened. Roleplay was active and diverse with a lot of different groups and personalities but the lore was thin, events few, game news practically non-existent when I started out.
Now the lore is fleshed out, there's a few official events a year, and world/game news coming out regularly but it's the RP that's thin, social events few, and public RP beyond competitions to see who can scrape the bottom of the barrel first practically non-existent.
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I would agree that RP does seem a little diminished from when I first joined about 4 years ago but I am seeing a lot of pockets flourishing. I do feel that IGS is not always a good barometer of the RP climate and if anything Backstage is almost a more effective connection tool.
I think this is also an effect of the game aging as well. A lot of us have very selective time to play so we have to find smaller events or even make our own opportunities when we can get online. This also means shorter story arcs and a lot more willingness for "yes, and" style RP. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...)
Events like Masks, Tourney viewing, Festivals and such are great because they almost force players out of monologue self-story building as long as people are willing to roll a little with each other. The downside is that they can take a large commitment of time which is hard for some of us to commit to. For those newer or looking to come back with the advent of Alpha state, I'd recommend looking for the more pocket Pubs and thematic channels as these currently seem at least mildly active without being the same arguments over and over again.
Just my observations...
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For those newer or looking to come back with the advent of Alpha state, I'd recommend looking for the more pocket Pubs and thematic channels as these currently seem at least mildly active without being the same arguments over and over again.
TBF, as feeble as it sounds, BarP was some better RP in recent memory. The most troublesome part was thinking of an excuse to decant.
I suspect you are correct about IGS being a poor barometer. Abandon hope, and all that.
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For what it's worth, there's at least one more social event coming up in the next month - the prize/gala thing for the IC writing contest. Luna and I just haven't settled on a date yet. If you were planning to enter, by the way, you have less than two weeks to submit something!
I've got an idea for an event up my sleeve (Cabaret Night, anyone?) that I'd like to run but Korsavius needs to find the time to provide me the hook to make it a thing I can bring up with one of his characters.
As for Steff's yearly Masquerade, I don't know the status of that but as Steff's a corpmate, needling will be applied.
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I will speculate that things will stir up elsewhere in the cluster now that this long-running Amarr arc has come to completion. What impact this will have on RP folks is up in the air. Even if you poke your head in as an Alpha, Silas, it would be nice to shout 'heretic!' at you again :)
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For those newer or looking to come back with the advent of Alpha state, I'd recommend looking for the more pocket Pubs and thematic channels as these currently seem at least mildly active without being the same arguments over and over again.
That's really the issue as a I see it, versus when I started rping years ago in Eve. Go and try and make an alt and pretend it's like you're a newbie trying to get into RP right. For me when I tried it, it's bloody difficult -- you try to dip into the "official" IGS channel or the forums and it's like you're stuck in a Youtube comments section. Maybe some people like that, just people arguing for the sake of arguing, but for those who don't then unless you're lucky enough for someone to invite you into their group you're pretty much screwed for any interactions beyond vitriol, trolling, and people generally just not giving a shit anymore through their characters (if that).
So as far as I can see new alphas and RP in Eve going it seems it's essentially just going to be: Hey welcome to the IGS, it's like we got the worst aspects of the internet involving mediocre personalities arguing over trivial bullshit but added spaceships and shit too! Hope you enjoy it!
Unless people are willing to invite the newbies into their private rp social circles or semi-public channels to foster interaction outside of that dynamic I'm unsure there will be much new blood in what is a niche activity in a niche game.
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All I can say to the complaints about the CCP channels is to pull people into the player-owned Summit and OOC. By and large it is the same cast and crew, with a few... key differences.
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there seems to be a bit of a trend right now, to pound on the fourth wall, on the IGS and ingame, as evidenced by people arguing about what a particular CONCORD directive means, with some saying that "the text is easily looked up", and others arguing that it's not. It really isn't easily looked up on an OOC level, because it doesn't exist. IC, then it should be something that a capsuleer would be able to look up. Same deal with the "Yulai Conventions", which is the name for the rules of war. When a war ends, there's the message that the war breaches one or more of the Yulai Conventions. But what those conventions actually are, is unknown, because it's not accessible in any way on an OOC level.
There's been a few other instances of that kind of fourth-wall pounding, but that one is the most recent, I think.
and as ever, it depends on which rp circle you're in, as to which side of the argument you're on.
Taken to extremes, it's the old argument about whether what you can see ingame, and do by ingame actions, is all there is, or whether there is stuff that remains hidden from your view. Civilian ships, planetary cities, cakes, none of that exists ingame in any meaningful way, and yet, without those things, the universe makes no sense. vOv
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It's all things that I've heard from the day I started:
- RP diminished
- RP is nothing but drama if public
- RP got more private
- RP is less accessible
- RP is only BarP nowadays
- There are public RP events
- PF got more fleshed out
- PF lacks in the important spots (e.g. which articles of the Yulai convention?)
- PF is great now!
- PF sucks
- Things don't exist if not explicitly noted in PF
- Things you can't access in game (OOCly) don't exist (ICly)
- ...
It's all things I constantly read as comments on the State of EVE (TM) from when I started playing the game about 10 years ago. What changes is the which of these positions are taken by which people in which of the possible (coherent as well as incoherent) combinations. Some of them are a bit more popular at the one time, then others emerge again to be more popular, but you can hear them all, if you listen.
Some of these statements are trivial, mostly (PF accumulates over time, so obviously it'd not get less fleshed out at least and the probability is high that it gets at least somewhat more 'fleshed out'), some are subjective (RP activity depends largely on time of activity of current people involed in RP for example), some are play style decisions which might be compatible or not. All that is in my book not very informative, anyhow.
I think nothing has changed, essentially. It's the old same-same, in variations - as I think Louella's closing remarks at the very least hinted at, imho.
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I read up a bit on the 'world news' that had been coming out last few years; it seems like the official news sorts of stories are incorporating player capsuleers into many of these stories these days? That used to be a difficult thing to do. Do you think this from a lower overall number of RPers (smaller pond, all fishes are bigger) or more RPers being on the Lore/Mercury squad these days?
IE the 'big' NPC characters back in the day wouldn't really acknowledge our existence let alone interact more than once a year or so but for one big event, and maybe then only in chat in local or something; now I'm seeing player capsuleers being name-checked regularly in news articles and woven into the storylines regularly.
I think some of us geezers would have appreciated that sort of interaction 'back in the day' with our own group stories when we were dedicated and enthusiastic about dumping time into the game but then again it would have likely caused no shortage of shitposting and screams of favoritism and report tickets.
I'm a bit busier these days but coming back to chat might be fun.
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There was already "favoritism drama" a few years back. Someone was banned or didn't get invited in to a chat channel that CCP actors visited or something in that manner and made salty rivers of tears all over the place 'cause of that.
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Do you think this from a lower overall number of RPers (smaller pond, all fishes are bigger) or more RPers being on the Lore/Mercury squad these days?
Someone like Lysus got mentioned in the IC news and I've never seen them in an RP channel to date. It just looks like CCP recognizing player actions in the game regardless RPer or not.
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Do you think this from a lower overall number of RPers (smaller pond, all fishes are bigger) or more RPers being on the Lore/Mercury squad these days?
Someone like Lysus got mentioned in the IC news and I've never seen them in an RP channel to date. It just looks like CCP recognizing player actions in the game regardless RPer or not.
But in Eve everyone roleplays. Whether they realised it is another story.
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Do you think this from a lower overall number of RPers (smaller pond, all fishes are bigger) or more RPers being on the Lore/Mercury squad these days?
Someone like Lysus got mentioned in the IC news and I've never seen them in an RP channel to date. It just looks like CCP recognizing player actions in the game regardless RPer or not.
Lysus was the Champion for Kor-Azor in the Trials. Whether he RPs in the sense that the rest of us do or not is irrelevant. He is now an Important Figure to the game's storyline, or at least was for a period of time.
That said, he was definitely talking mad IC shit in Amarr local during Catiz' inspection of the honor guard. Props to CCP for not only playing along with it but having the balls to blow him up - and to Lysus for deliberately trying to get that result.
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Channel rp, you know what I mean.
I still think it's a good thing for CCP to go, hey look stuff happened and characters did things, let's recognize that.
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Unless people are willing to invite the newbies into their private rp social circles or semi-public channels to foster interaction outside of that dynamic I'm unsure there will be much new blood in what is a niche activity in a niche game.
Yes. I for one am trying to figure out how to locate the newbies and extend a helping hand.
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But in Eve everyone roleplays. Whether they realised it is another story.
Now, if you take a broad enough definition of 'roleplay', everyone is roleplaying all the time, basically - as everyone assumes social roles in their everyday life.
The fact is that most EVE-players don't play EVE as a role-playing-game and aren't, in a stricter sense, roleplaying.
The old adage that "All EVE is roleplay" is based on a confusion about the differing meaning 'roleplay' can have or on being unjustifiedly satisfied with making use of a too broad definition of 'roleplay' there.
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I've always been a proponent that since 90% of the players don't remotely give a shit about the IP or RP, keep them at arm's length aside from the actual gameplay of participating in events.
Basically do big and small events that effect storyline and include all the peoples so everyone does the things, but maybe have the 'actors' do more of the interacting with all the nerds who actually care about it and spend their time caring about it and contributing to that end of the pool. In other words capsuleer DerpSquad420blaze getting some face time with Jamyl or Heth or whatever always rubbed me a bit the wrong way, while some quiet Caldari roleplayer runnig their little trading corp for years might as well not exist in that context.
Maybe a way around this might be having a separate 'player council' of/for RP nerds that has power to run some storylines and create events/misisons that can spend the volunteer hours to make it fun and not 'big drama' all the time. *shrug*
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I think having a separate 'Council' just for the RP community could backfire. It can't be a matter of overall players vs. RPers which is what could happen if the two councils were ever at odds. That being said, I think there is value in having everyday players who are also RPers have access to the minds and story characters who are driving the lore. I like that CCP is involved, to at least some degree, in writing contests (though I could wish for more here based on only knowing of one such contest they are involved in so far). The trick is in how much CCP could afford to pay a committed RP branch of folks spending their time in character. (I would assume very, very little) and as such you'll end up with those like CCP Falcon having to balance known entities in the whole of eve with lesser-known but perhaps more committed members of the RP/Lore world.
Silas, are you thinking that CCP would empower members of this RP council to RP their characters as an extension of the story? Or just advise on possible Lore/IG events?
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Silas, are you thinking that CCP would empower members of this RP council to RP their characters as an extension of the story? Or just advise on possible Lore/IG events?
Basically the old AURORA team, with tweaks, anonymous membership (like Mercury).
Any players writing storylines would obviously keep their own characters out, or at least to a minimum.
People would have to get out of the 'winning' and 'losing' RP mentality though for it to work at all.
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People would have to get out of the 'winning' and 'losing' RP mentality though for it to work at all.
I think any good RPer must shed or never pick up this terrible habit in the first place. But I know that can be hard. It's a competitive game and so that is going to transition in. I think, going back to Luna's comment about fostering new players, we as a community help ourselves when we help newer RPers understand that some of the best story happens when we 'lose'.
As a side note, I REALLY wish I could better write the humorous sort of 'losing' character without them being a sad-sack. Anyone ever have/read any really good humor-intended 'losing' characters in EvE? Synthia comes close with some of her various attendants/generals/admirals but I'd love to read more of this kind of character (and see more out there).
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I've always been a proponent that since 90% of the players don't remotely give a shit about the IP or RP, keep them at arm's length aside from the actual gameplay of participating in events.
Basically do big and small events that effect storyline and include all the peoples so everyone does the things, but maybe have the 'actors' do more of the interacting with all the nerds who actually care about it and spend their time caring about it and contributing to that end of the pool. In other words capsuleer DerpSquad420blaze getting some face time with Jamyl or Heth or whatever always rubbed me a bit the wrong way, while some quiet Caldari roleplayer runnig their little trading corp for years might as well not exist in that context.
Maybe a way around this might be having a separate 'player council' of/for RP nerds that has power to run some storylines and create events/misisons that can spend the volunteer hours to make it fun and not 'big drama' all the time. *shrug*
I had complete opposite experience about those 90%. For example I was pleasantly surprised about how many people in FW from amarr side knew and cared about lore and were lite RPers.
So it depends solely on personal definition of what is considered RP and it would be a real shame if CCP would keep even more people at arm's length from EVE lore.
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[...] it would be a real shame if CCP would keep even more people at arm's length from EVE lore.
For that problem to arise, there must first be lore.
This is not a problem for the Amarr, who have a clear-cut set of IC rules, organizations, personalities, and who have gotten well beyond the lion's share of live event actor and dev support. They also have long-standing player infrastructure and institutional milieux, which is great for players new and old, but does fuck all for anyone who isn't in Providence or Amarr FW. That's not to say that there aren't willing and able Amarr players in Forum RP, but that kind of interaction is not for everyone. How many active characters post regularly on IGS? Probably the same people who have been doing it when I joined in 2013.
When CCP forget that the Gallente have elections, or that the Minmatar exist, we take it upon ourselves to fill in the blanks without their help, but it is difficult to tell new players, "no this isn't really lore, we're just circlejerking to our own fanfiction."
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When CCP forget that the Gallente have elections, or that the Minmatar exist, we take it upon ourselves to fill in the blanks without their help, but it is difficult to tell new players, "no this isn't really lore, we're just circlejerking to our own fanfiction."
And this is where I can see some value in enlisting help from the player world for developing more lore. I almost wonder if CCP Falcon and other Role divining devs could instead reach out to already written PF and select those pieces which actually fit in line with what they consider to be lore. In this way they wouldn't have to do as much work but could still maintain at least some control over the world they see in their collective heads and what we are trying to flesh out. Do they already do this? I know I've seen some notes in writing contests hinting ad adapting PF into Lore. I am limited by my recent participation in the RP world. (Funny that three years of casual play is 'recent' in an MMO)
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Given CCP's definition of moderating the IGS is "punish content creators, ignore habitual rule-breakers," I have zero faith in the idea that CCP should ever be involved beyond continuing to make news and events as they are currently doing.
They mentioned wanting to spin up another events division in ISD but that was two Fanfests ago and we're about a year overdue on the devblog that Affinity had said she'd have out last fall. Not that I fault her for that, she's probably been busy and things probably got pushed aside as usual.
But I also have no faith in the players to be able to not abuse that power and responsibility.
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I am limited by my recent participation in the RP world.
You have me beat in that respect.
To use you (sorry) as a stand-in to counterpoint: it seems to me that the push from the devs has been for player-derived (in contrast to player-driven) lore since the Prophecy trailer. Origin, Alexylva, and her associates seem to fit the blueprint that CCP have been drawing. The alliance appearances in the Scope ticker, the player avatars posing in the holoreels, True Stories... the indication of a lore that may be moving away from the empires and toward capsuleer organizations. If so, it would take little effort on their part to make it part of New Eden history; simply let the players generate the story, then have ISD/M develop an adaptation.
The problem with this approach is that the empires form the backdrop for most new players, thus being a key concept in contextualizing what the character is and what the player is doing. A new wave of Alpha Clones can't be expected to absorb 13-odd years of alliance shenanigans into their RP backstory. Perhaps the upcoming changes to the NPE will address the past reliance on the SoE epic arc and COSMOS missions to flesh out the world, instead pointing new pilots to null and J-space. That's an interesting new direction.
...but look at Elmund's recent thread. Does Villore 'Prime', ostensible seat of the Legislative and Judicial branches of government for trillions, have a name, a history, or a capital? Much less individual districts within that capital, neighborhoods, businesses, and local personalities? What is there for the young Gallente FW pilot to know about their probable HQ other than 'replace your ships here'? They likely won't care, but then what reason would they have?
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I don't disagree with you at all Nis (except that Origin/Alexylva would fit CCP's wants/needs as adaptable cannon; half our shtick is that we are pointedly outside the Empire control.)
But that is also my point. There are written pieces (player-derived) that CAN be adapted into canon. We saw this (speaking to your point I think) with the Goon wars as CCP tried to capture the mad rush of new players to support both sides and be part of something big.
And as to how CCP could get away from reliance on the 4 empires... why not have a mission chain lead them out into a Pirate faction or introduce Pirate FW as someone else mentioned? As far as getting new players into J-space, well we've found that killing them and sending a short mail on how we would be happy to teach them about WH space seems ironically to interest more folks than one would think. (We all just crazy I guess). But why not try to develop more rewards for finding Thera and other special wormholes?
Anyway... I'm actually very impressed and humbled by all of the written RP/PF that comes out this time of year and especially by how much my own corpmates have participated. I see that as a testament to the newer RPers out there. As an example, the attempted eviction of Origin a few weeks back has already spawned no lless than 3 separate published works and many IC bits.
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[...] it would be a real shame if CCP would keep even more people at arm's length from EVE lore.
For that problem to arise, there must first be lore.
This is not a problem for the Amarr, who have a clear-cut set of IC rules, organizations, personalities, and who have gotten well beyond the lion's share of live event actor and dev support. They also have long-standing player infrastructure and institutional milieux, which is great for players new and old, but does fuck all for anyone who isn't in Providence or Amarr FW. That's not to say that there aren't willing and able Amarr players in Forum RP, but that kind of interaction is not for everyone. How many active characters post regularly on IGS? Probably the same people who have been doing it when I joined in 2013.
When CCP forget that the Gallente have elections, or that the Minmatar exist, we take it upon ourselves to fill in the blanks without their help, but it is difficult to tell new players, "no this isn't really lore, we're just circlejerking to our own fanfiction."
I absolutely agree, CCP's obsession with one faction for quite extensive amount of time is not great. My main point was more about 10% of playerbase cares about the lore thing, I find that simply not true from my experience.
Given CCP's definition of moderating the IGS is "punish content creators, ignore habitual rule-breakers," I have zero faith in the idea that CCP should ever be involved beyond continuing to make news and events as they are currently doing.
For the most part CCP is keeping hands off approach when IGS is concerned. What content creator did they punish and how?
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I'm talking about the forum, not the channel.
But they both suffer for the same reasons: CCP does not enforce the rules that it says it will enforce, and in fact punishes (or threatens to punish) those who report violations of the rules for reporting those violations.
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From what I've seen catching up on the last year or two the Amarr are getting more storylines, but don't forget to take the long view....the eye of Sauron CCP Plot focus will often change towards another faction for just as long. The Amarr had droughts on any number of 'big' plots that were simply dropped for years at a time for shinier stories. I think the Caldari were the last faction to get a extended lore love with all of the Titan-ing / Heth toppling public events a few years back. Matari/Fed getting short end of stick lately.
Also been my experience that for whatever reason the Amarr RPers often have more 'institutional' memory, that is a few long-running corps that keep a certain culture going and don't fold after a decade or so. Just not as many RPers in the Fed/Republic focused groups.
Two quick points re: Ashley:
1) Regarding channels/IGS/events CCP modding, there are hardly enough pages on the interwebs to cover more than a decade of inconsistencies, favoritisms, locked threads, questionable bans, questionable non-bans, and herp derping from a stupidly high number of both RPers and a good number of CCP staff. Heroes and villains on both sides. There lay dragons in those caves, trust us.
2) Regarding how much of the playerbase are actualy doing RP stuffs on the reg, I think it was like 1% of subs? Highly dedicated handful of people, as it's always been. 'Arm's Length' is perhaps not the term I would use, but sometimes events have to stay small and focused and off the big radar before mobs of people show up specifically to troll. There's a continuum of events they should push, with Caldari Prime Titan bbq on the one end and dev actors hiring a small mining corp to build a capital ship or haul around some VIP's on the other end.
Good convo though, nice to hear from all of you
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Basically you can troll, use racial discrimination, be sexist, gender stereotype, harass, and write hate speech on the IGS so long as it's just RP ayyyy.
You don't even have to be respectful to others at all times.
But then it's CCP and they've got a long history of arbitrary and non-equivalent application of their own rules.
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From what I've seen catching up on the last year or two the Amarr are getting more storylines, but don't forget to take the long view....the eye of Sauron CCP Plot focus will often change towards another faction for just as long. The Amarr had droughts on any number of 'big' plots that were simply dropped for years at a time for shinier stories. I think the Caldari were the last faction to get a extended lore love with all of the Titan-ing / Heth toppling public events a few years back. Matari/Fed getting short end of stick lately.
And don't let us forget: While it might be the point of the Federation that you have regular elections, the Empire is supposed to be ruled by one and the same Emperor for centuries. How did that turn out?
Yes, I know people who're rather pleased with what CCP had in store for the Amarr. Some seem more happy that CCP is doing anything at all, lorewise. I personally think that their writing is piecemeal work, mainly catering towards the changes in game-mechanics, largely inconsistent and forgetting of chunks of previous lore and all around not that great at all.
This certainly is a result of CCP putting little stock in consistency there, beginning with the people hired for the lore department. One saw that when CCP lay off Eterne. And while CCP Falcon has been putting some work into Lore/PF, it's no secret that he has strong feelings in which factions are the guys he likes and which he really dislikes. I personally think that's something showing in recent Lore/PF as well.
All that is on top of CCP's definition of moderating the IGS is "punish content creators, ignore habitual rule-breakers"
What CCP would need is a dedicated Lore/PF team which they keep, develop and into which they put people with the skills to write good fiction, keeping a story consistent and for proper world-building. It's possible, there are traditional RPGs who've done it much, much better.
But for CCP there is no money in this, so I highly doubt that they will ever consider something like that. They'll rather continue the route that lead to taking down the EVElopedia and monetizing lore through publication of EVE Source. (It's kind'a saying 'I told you so.', I know, but when they published Source I predicted that they will take down the EVElopedia, rather then aligning it with that book - which imho has the prime goal of making money from those interested in the lore or just collecting EVE merchandise - as others predicted.)
No, I have zero faith in CCP there. Nor do I think that having Lore/PF in the hands of players. As Morwen says: I can't imagine without abuse of that power and responsibility happening.
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But for CCP there is no money in this, so I highly doubt that they will ever consider something like that. They'll rather continue the route that lead to taking down the EVElopedia and monetizing lore through publication of EVE Source. (It's kind'a saying 'I told you so.', I know, but when they published Source I predicted that they will take down the EVElopedia, rather then aligning it with that book - which imho has the prime goal of making money from those interested in the lore or just collecting EVE merchandise - as others predicted.)
And thus we have the crux of it. The cynical part of me as well as the me who went into business has to then ask, what other model could they use? The Source will be purchased by some of us (or as gifts for some of us *crosses fingers*) but could CCP moke money off of a publication (I know they used to have one before my time)? Say, Subscription gains you access to an archive of CCP written and Player-written/CCP accepted Lore? In this way there is no additional fee but it's one more thing they can list as an advantage of Omega grade.
As I said, I went into business because it was the practical choice, but to me it seems that there has to be a way that both sides could benefit, maybe it just hasn't been tried yet.
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Say, Subscription gains you access to an archive of CCP written and Player-written/CCP accepted Lore? In this way there is no additional fee but it's one more thing they can list as an advantage of Omega grade.
Certainly a better option. If I pay a subscription fee to play a game, I don't want to pay extra money to access the PF of that game.
But it's also always a question of interests. I don't want to condemn CCP for wanting to make money with their IP. The problem is that they - at least that's my impression - are so overwhelmingly interested in making money, that one has to wonder if they have any interest in presenting a good, well-tought-out background story for that game, or is the interest not merely to put up enough window dressing to keep the majority of the more lore-interested part of the player base hooked?
The interests of making money and producing quality aren't mutually exclusive in my opinion. But CCP simply doesn't care for quality that much, there, I think.
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Just gonna chime in with the following:
The idea of an RP focused Council is a non-starter, along with a reboot of Mercury. CCP are pretty reluctant at this point to hand over the keys for lore development to anyone else, but are instead taking an approach that big player content becomes lore through Scope reports and ISD articles.
'Selling lore' is not a unique thing and not something I'm surprised about as other companies do it both in video game formats (DLC artbooks anyone?) and even Games Workshop. The latter example however is supported by masses of player owned/run wikis, and in due time I'm hopeful private wikis for Eve including Backstage's will grow.
In regards to the 'State of Eve' yeah, it's a cycle. I'm burned out of RP myself and just looking to try to enjoy the game again, but from my own personal experiences it does feel we're entering a bit of a famine period for interesting content that's open to large numbers of people. By that I mean arcs.
That said, social events are a pain to run and do require set up time, so the idea of faction on faction arc events is something I don't even want to think about. It makes sense that if those with the patience and capacity to do this are burned up, then we're not going to get them till someone else comes along with the bright ideas to do it.
I'm also going to stake my flag in the ground with a big fat no to empowering any players with extra gizmos or tools as there are, and likely always will be, RPers that will abuse said positions or play to 'win'. IGS is a shitshow of various types all playing to 'win' an argument to the point I've thrown my arms up in the air and just join in with the jabbing and pointless arguing for the sake of a tea break's entertainment, but with it seeming to spread into the ingame RP I'm out.
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So about the same really for the past 3+ years.
Past decade, easily.
To be honest, in the past 10 years it feels like an inverse has happened. Roleplay was active and diverse with a lot of different groups and personalities but the lore was thin, events few, game news practically non-existent when I started out.
Now the lore is fleshed out, there's a few official events a year, and world/game news coming out regularly but it's the RP that's thin, social events few, and public RP beyond competitions to see who can scrape the bottom of the barrel first practically non-existent.
Imagine what the pvp meta would look like right now if about 3 years ago 80% of the people involved in building ships, making doctrines, and FC'ing fleets all faded away around the same time.
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Given CCP's definition of moderating the IGS is "punish content creators, ignore habitual rule-breakers," I have zero faith in the idea that CCP should ever be involved beyond continuing to make news and events as they are currently doing.
A rarely mentioned but glaring problem is the IGS moderation. This kills the roleplayer.
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So I wasn't the only one who got bored and quietly faded away for a while?