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[Casiella]

((Why didn't I know that Amann == Nikiruu?!))

Excellent points there. Both arenas for RP (space and the "everything else") have a place in our environment, and finding ways to work with them will lead to a much richer interaction than either one on its own.

Some of the most enjoyable RP I had came from trying to decrypt IGS messages when the Sansha event arc began earlier this year.

[Bacchanalian]

I don't see how it can be "god-modding" when an in-game tool and investment of resources is used to address a plotline that is acknowledged by the events crew as influential to the progress of events.

[...]

[ 18:11:26 ] Slave Endoma01 > Dropships experiencing resistance.
[ 18:11:34 ] Slave Umokka01 > Evolving tactics.
[ 18:13:03 ] Slave Umokka01 > Dropship squadrons 23, 28, 29 reporting resistance.
[ 18:14:07 ] Slave Endoma01 > Fortified emplacements on the planet's surface engaging dropships. Evolving tactics.
[ 18:15:01 ] Slave Umokka01 > Planetary defences in excess of estimates. Evolving tactics.

[...]

[ 18:29:31 ] Slave Umokka01 > Planetary populations within dropzones are evacuating via capsuleer infrastructure.

[...]

[ 18:51:31 ] Slave Umokka01 > Dropship squadrons 1 through 50 returning from surface. 16% capacity.

[...]

[ 19:01:50 ] Slave Umokka01 > Remaining dropship squadrons rallying at portal alpha. 19% capacity. 23,000 souls uplifted for Nation.

[...]

As roleplayers we need to use all our tools available to make a point when we choose. If anyone does want to be profoundly anti-RP about it, we could point out that the planetary spaceport infrastructure is MORE REAL than the Sansha dropships (which are purely RP constructs) whereas the PI infrastructure is "real" (ie paid for with isk and deployed through in-game means) But I note that element of situation is not questioned by the posters above.

Still, worth remember that not every element of the setting is about capsuleers. And for an organization like Star Fraction that is very interested in the fate of baseline humanity we need tools to interact with non-capsuleer impacting plotlines to properly honour our RP ideals and principles. PI gives a way to do this at the moment with the credibility of in-game investment. I can't see how thats a bad thing.

Anybody takes issue with it. Well, you know where the wardec button is.

Wow.  Jade, really?  You're the one who for all these years beat the "get in space or STFU" drum.  In fact, when I get a second to properly reply, I'm going to go back through OOC and see how many posts to that effect of yours I can drum up.  Of all people that I expected to question the /sip RP claiming to do something, I figured you'd be first on the list.  Didn't we wardec Gorion for just that sort of nonsense back in Mitograd?

The reason I think it's ridiculous RP is that there's fuck-all anyone can do about it.  Like I said, what's to stop me from claiming my personal forces raided the planet and kidnapped every woman they could find for my brothel? 

[Casiella]

You could easily RP that you hired mercs to attempt that. The difference is doing so in a way that explicitly works with the GM (CCP) and lets it determine the result.

[Bacchanalian]

Worth noting, I'd be bothered less if these pilots actually had ships at the planet supposedly ferrying people back and forth.  Instead these pilots were cloaked somewhere in the system RPing in local and magically teleporting civilians around apparently.

[Bacchanalian]

Yea, I know many people feel this way. For myself, I'd prefer what happens in the space to happen via game mechanics, and make-believe only supplement for things that are not about space. I don't really even know why exactly, but it does feel different to me to say on local "I jam the wormhole!" and to actually activate a module on something that then explodes.

Scary to say it, but I agree with you.  Emoting in local that you're activating ECM on the WH when you're actually cloaked 30 AU from the planet in question=make believe.  Warping your ship into the shitstorm of Sansha and fighting to do so=action backed by RP motives.

[Seriphyn]

Like I said...

Me and Doctor Illuminata dropped some spaceports on the planet and spouted in local about coordinating a defence (of course we gradually lost)...this was the result...said within seconds of announcing it...

[22:12:34] Citizen Astur  Dropship squadrons 1 through 200 reporting resistance. Deploying additional reinforcements from portals alpha and beta.

So we RP'd it out...gradually getting worn down of course...

[22:18:40] Citizen Astur  Dropship squadrons 1 through 200 returning from surface. 74% capacity.

[22:28:48] Citizen Astur  Dropship squadrons 1 through 200 returning from surface. 84% capacity.

[22:39:10] Citizen Astur  Dropship squadrons 1 through 200 returning from surface. 98% capacity. Portals secure.

No way in hell I was going to be able to engage the ebil nullsecers by myself, but I got as much enjoyment out of it as I can

It's not always about being an awesome PvPer all the time, at least not to everyone. It's just a make believe video game.

[Silver Night]

[mod]Please remember that 'ur doin' it wrong' isn't allowed within the guidelines. Other people are free to RP as they wish, however silly it may seem . Do feel free to make clear both how you would do things (instead of focusing on how others shouldn't) and make note of things that other people did that you thought were awesome.I may go through the rest of the thread in more detail later.[/mod]

[Seriphyn]

Actually...

I wanted to participate in the Oruse II event somehow. Given that Seriphyn had prior knowledge of the attack, no excuse for him not to. It's not far from Vevelonel either.

However, no one from the FDU would be interested, so I had to be solo. No way was I gonna be engaging the bigass fleets.

So decided to be more creative a la Doctor Illuminatus and try something different, so that I could participate and enjoy myself without having to  feel completely helpless.

Enjoyment folks, it's your 15 bucks a month after all 

[Louella Dougans]

The sansha dropships are/were central to the entire live events. They do not have an ingame presence.

Players did a number of things in response.

Some were deploying probes, and handwaved them going through the wormhole (wormhole was not a wormhole as such, but simply a static object).
Some put ships between the wormhole and the planet, and ran smartbombs (which would catch dropships as they passed by).
Some deployed minefields around the wormhole to prevent use by dropships (I did this, using the old ingame mines, which I happened to have a bpc of. Others did as well afaik.).
Some used ECM on the wormhole to destabilise it. (some sciencey thing related to how gravimetric ECM jammers are supposed to work)
Some deployed structures on planet, some with, some without troops and aircraft to directly combat Sansha dropships+troops. (planetary interaction things, plus some conjecture)
Some used psych tactics on the sansha commander to confuse/disorientate them. (talking with Heavenbound in particular)

All of those could have worked. Only some did. Why?

as far as I see, The answer is because the actor/gm recognised that something was being done, they understood what the players were trying to convey, they chose whether or not it worked, then they reacted or did not react.

So, what is the problem?

Consistency, Things worked for some players, but not for others. Why? Did the actor miss someone "posing" in local? Did the person forget to "pose"?
When I was in a position to get my interceptor to a site and throw out the mines, first time I did it, wormholes shut, and re-opened. I was mentioning it in local. Another time, I didn't mention it in local, nothing happened. Third time, i mentioned things in local, one wormhole shut, reopened elsewhere.

Communication, If English is not your first language, how do you communicate that you are bombarding a point-defect in space-time with graviton waves from a spatial destabiliser projector, in such a fashion as to collapse the waveform of the point defect? And do that in a sufficiently timely way that the event isn't over before you finish?

Consent, the objects have to agree to be affected. Here the dread spectre of favouritism appears. Example, if planetary facilities have an effect, then:
1. Place lots of facilities on Gallente Prime. Place more in Villore, where the Senate is.
2. Have lots of ingame units of Marines, Militants, whathaveyou. Take them to Gallente Prime and Villore.
3. have bookmarks where you're at the planet surface. Fly industrials full of the marines to those points.
4. "Invade". The Gallente just lost FW. The State took Gallente Prime and the seat of federal government.

Except they didn't. Why not? Because the GM says no. Why? Why is that RP, which is entirely based on ingame achieveable actions, not valid?

[Casiella]

One of the best things about being a GM (in other games, obviously) is that you get to decide and not necessarily justify everything to the players. But of course you have reasons: maybe it doesn't serve the overarching story, or maybe you perceive some unfairness to other players, or maybe it violates the themes of the adventure, or maybe the player pissed you off by taking the last beer.

For your specific example, one would think that transferring a few thousand marines or militants would pale in comparison to the garrisons that likely protect the Senate and such. And, Sansha NPC god-moding aside space-ground assaults likely have all sorts of tactical issues: SAMs, tracking, etc. Players can't simply hand-wave away the existing defenses for all the reasons mentioned above.

I would have no problem with a character attempting just that, as long as the player recognized the IC futility of the gesture.

[Jade Constantine]

Wow.  Jade, really?  You're the one who for all these years beat the "get in space or STFU" drum.  In fact, when I get a second to properly reply, I'm going to go back through OOC and see how many posts to that effect of yours I can drum up.  Of all people that I expected to question the /sip RP claiming to do something, I figured you'd be first on the list.  Didn't we wardec Gorion for just that sort of nonsense back in Mitograd?

We certainly did. Would be nice to think there are some corporations/alliances still around that might follow our example then and wardec people for doing things we disagree with in-character.

Thats probably the slipping-up point here. Because I'm not sure what Rote's position on this Sansha invasion is really. You've publicly said you are just there shoot people for lols - fair enough, but its not really anything you can express in terms of easily inviting 3rd party roleplaying about. I mean I read the thread devoted to you and wondered if this was Rote re-engaging with the storyline again in some form, but after reading your guys responses there I came away thinking "meh" so opportunist pirates, thats a bit ordinary.

IF you had a campaign and had decided to aid the Sanshan invasion and were being confronted by people building things on planets you can't easily stop and were beating you over the head with it then I feel you would have more cause for complaint.

Thats closer to the angst you and I suffered from teleporting clergymen Judas Goat era - I think. So sure - voices on the summit saying "Hey Rote you suck, we have planetary batteries you can't touch lololol we win!" - I'd be right with you condemning it as crappy.

But nevertheless, you do have the option of wardeccing their corporation/alliances and obliterating them at source to prove your point.

That might actually be interesting - people getting off the fence and staking something of their corporate/alliance reputations on action in space. I'd love to see you guys accepting the Sansha coin and bullying "coalition" member corps into apologizing to the invaders or something - it would at least be different to see some roleplay from people with guns and ships to back it up.

Kind of like we both did in Mito when we read one too many Nikolai posts about warmechs and munitions sales on Galnet and decided to see if they could live up to it in space.

That's your option really Bacc. Take a leaf out of the Fraction's playbook and wardec people who are roleplaying their characters doing things your character's don't like. Publicise your campaign, set out your agenda and endgame, set yourself some targets and go make it happen. But don't complain about other people's roleplay ponyism without being prepared to crush the perpetrators into oblivion to make YOUR point.

I do sometimes think you guys in Stim took the anti-pony thing a bit too far from our time together. We in the Fraction have never told roleplayers in Eve they cannot do these things - hell, that would be hypocritical because we do our share of ponyism and always have. The point is that people should be prepared to face up to the consequences of their ponyism and thats where we were on the same page back in 2007: ponies, journals, IGS, local chat, any of these things can invite response. Our true enemies back then were the sandboxistas not the RP ponies.

We declared war on KD to show that the single cluster has consequences for self-gratifying nationalists. We never denied their right to "claim" they had stompy squarehead battlemechs and massive weapons manufacturing plants as depicted by their summit propaganda - we simply wanted to test their capability in space as well.

That is the true lesson of Mito.

The reason I think it's ridiculous RP is that there's fuck-all anyone can do about it.  Like I said, what's to stop me from claiming my personal forces raided the planet and kidnapped every woman they could find for my brothel?  

Absolutely nothing. Post a thread about it if you like. IGS is something of a court of public (IC) credibility. There is a fine art to claiming things that other players will let you get away with. Hell some well known Amarrian Nationalists claimed for years to be representing the will of the Empire and doing the Emperor's bidding. You can certainly make a thread and claim x,y,z on a given event (like PL did) whether its taken seriously or not is generally out of your hands though. But nobody stops you trying it.

But I do strongly disagree that there is "nothing" you can do about it. You can always click wardec and obliterate a player corporation/alliance that offends you. This is Eve after all. We all have options in escalation. Its why we play this game rather than wow I think.

Case in point: in SF this autumn we've destroyed 3 alliances so far and we're working on our 4th on our Providence vendetta because we got backstabbed by the "big-hats" in YWS0-Z. I'm sure Rote Kapelle could annihilate a few roleplay entities that offended you by using PI to simulate planetary batteries if you so choose to do so. And I bet you'd have fun and get in the news doing it.

[Casiella]

Just to note: there are other ways to resolve differences than just wardecs (though that remains an option, obviously).

[Z.Sinraali]

Post a thread about it if you like. IGS is something of a court of public (IC) credibility. There is a fine art to claiming things that other players will let you get away with.

This little kernel of wisdom applies both here and in a million other cases that one can name, and is really what public roleplay is all about. The mechanics of the game are not consent-based, but the roleplay we build on top of them is, and has to be to provide an answer to godmoding and harassment and overreach and so many of the other problems we find in this kind of fun-making.

Just to note: there are other ways to resolve differences than just wardecs (though that remains an option, obviously).

You lie! *wardec*

[Kaleigh Doyle]

The competitive world of EVE will never allow an individual's imagination to roam completely free. If someone is threatened by, or you stand to gain (politically, socially, diplomatically) from your 'pretend time' GI JOE moment, the validity of the act will be questioned. These kinds of actions require an implied consent from anyone who is exposed to your event, and I think we all know the odds of finding consensus about anything on any topic with over 15 people.

With that in mind, there are far worse things to happen than having your non-existent event question by a fellow player...like no one giving a shit at all. 

[Louella Dougans]

For your specific example, one would think that transferring a few thousand marines or militants would pale in comparison to the garrisons that likely protect the Senate and such. And, Sansha NPC god-moding aside space-ground assaults likely have all sorts of tactical issues: SAMs, tracking, etc. Players can't simply hand-wave away the existing defenses for all the reasons mentioned above.

I would have no problem with a character attempting just that, as long as the player recognized the IC futility of the gesture.

PI spaceports with associated mercenary aerospace units. Enough to gain a window of aerospace superiority of sufficient duration to allow 200 or so industrials to deploy their 10,000+ troops each.

It is IC futile when it does not suit the storyline as determined by the GMs. Another day, it could be a great and glorious success, with only 1% of the player effort.

Also, you can't planetary bombard as such, however it is possible to drop thousands of containers of heavy metals into the atmosphere, as a James Bond supervillian type scheme. Now why not?