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[Vieve]

The majority of Gallente RP'ers are not members of this board, or even members of what is deemed to be the 'roleplay community'. They're out there in facwar, or the periphery of lowsec in Placid, Essence, Verge Vendor. They rp the gallente angle, but in the form or fashion folks commonly think of it.

While I totally and completely agree with this, doesn't it also apply to the other major nations as well?

While I can't speak for the Republic side of things (while Sabi's basing out of there these days, she'd likely not be social even if I was active), I've also seen the quoted phenomenon going on in Amarr and Caldari space. 

[Bataav]

each debate Bataav takes part in (focussing on Intaki) the Federal RP mostly comes from a military angle

First, there is an axiom put long ago by Jade Constantine all over IGS, put your money where your mouth is. That means if you start bashing X faction, you better be prepared to deal with it, in any way it comes at your door. In EvE in particular, that is going to be PvP.

When i created Lutin Group i was looking to make a less PvP centric corp, but still loyalist to the Federation, more like a "business partner" of the great NPC groups who live in the Federation. But althought that game style might seem interesting, this game is made to brutally fuck the crap out of each other until we both bleed to the point we have to stop.

2nd, for those capsuleer corporations that are loyal to the Federation and wish to engage in PvP there is little room in RP terms to explain the nature of your activities.

If you were an Amarr loyalists, you could be a holder with a personal fleet, a corporation loyal to one of the houses or heirs.

If you are a Minmatar, you could be a military force from one of the tribes, a para-military group seeking to free slaves, or a security provider.

If you are a Caldari, you certainly are a subsidiary of one of the megas, either security division, space operations, whatever.

If you are Gallente..........what other "legal" and "believable" option you have besides a Private Military Contractor (PMC), paramilitaries in democracies are often regarded as "extremist"....bordering on terrorist (white supremacy?).

So you see, most arguments come from the military angle, cause its where most of the Fed-RP loyalists sit. It's the easier option, and one that can deal with threats coming from other RPers. Why would you choose to be a research-only RP corp, if an enemy can come and blast your POS to kingdom come and your options limited to hiring mercs?. I wouldn't.

Ah perhaps I wasn't clear in my meaning when I used the word "military".

By military I meant armed forces as in the militia as in the FDU. What you don't find in the example I was giving was RP between industrialists on different sides of the divide, the capsuleers who are out there mining and manufacturing, or the explorers, or researchers. It's (almost) always members of the militia.

Off the top of my head I think Simon's corp (in Verge Vendor?) presents those of us in neighbouring Placid with the closest potential in terms of both forum and pod based RP.

Simon's 'corp' is just me, and suffers from a recurring state of me not being in the game, sadly.  Also, frankly, I'm not a leader.

For the sake of variety it's a shame

[Casiella]

So you see, most arguments come from the military angle, cause its where most of the Fed-RP loyalists sit. It's the easier option, and one that can deal with threats coming from other RPers. Why would you choose to be a research-only RP corp, if an enemy can come and blast your POS to kingdom come and your options limited to hiring mercs?. I wouldn't.

Again, this applies to other areas as well. Why RP as (say) a Minmatar production corp, or a Caldari research organization, when somebody might come dec you?

Maybe I've misunderstood somehow; if so, please feel free to correct me.

[Valdezi]

I originally created Mammal as a Federal. My first corp was in fw, but we were all noobs so we didn't do a lot.

After a while, I started looking for new corp. I wasn't heavily involved with the RP scene at the time, but I made a shortlist of corps to join. They were:

Strix
Azure Horizon Federate Militia
Placid Reborn
ILF

After thinking for a bit, I decided on the ILF and went from there. But I've always been interested in Federal roleplay, and it's a pity that there is a big hole in the middle of it.

[Hamish Grayson]

What you don't find in the example I was giving was RP between industrialists on different sides of the divide, the capsuleers who are out there mining and manufacturing, or the explorers, or researchers. It's (almost) always members of the militia.

http://ldis.caldari-made.net/

[Seriphyn]

There are plenty of lite Gallente RP industrial corps...maybe not internal RP in corp or whatever, go as far as have an IC/RPd corp desc...

Industrial corps likely don't have the need to IGS grandstand.

There are also a lot of closet RPers. The CEO of SOTF admitted this, actually

Maybe I should encourage Shaalira D'arc to attempt a bit more public IGS stuff. She can do the "military pragmatism" thing without the baggage of Seri. And people may/can respond better to female characters*

*might be talking complete shit

[Alain Colcer]

So you see, most arguments come from the military angle, cause its where most of the Fed-RP loyalists sit. It's the easier option, and one that can deal with threats coming from other RPers. Why would you choose to be a research-only RP corp, if an enemy can come and blast your POS to kingdom come and your options limited to hiring mercs?. I wouldn't.

Again, this applies to other areas as well. Why RP as (say) a Minmatar production corp, or a Caldari research organization, when somebody might come dec you?

Maybe I've misunderstood somehow; if so, please feel free to correct me.

It is true, it does apply to any and all factions, and as Hamish pointed out LDIS is a very good example of a non-pvp centric corporation. But most would only regard you as "good corps" if you either have 4+ years of history, or if you are able to pull your weight in PvP.

Honestly, I really would like to attemp another Lutin Group clone and play the more NPC business associate type of RP line, specially doing the whole Lobbyst faction and politician relations more active and dynamic...but not sure i can play 2-3 chars.....i hardly have time to enjoy the one i'm using lately

[Hamish Grayson]

Dooooo it!

[orange]

The Federation's frontier is a hostile place. It is swarming with criminal organizations, political dissidents, State raiders, and all sorts of various malign groups.  But the frontier is where we makes our fortunes!

We at Frontier Enterprises help to develop the Federation's frontier colonies, in space, on moons, and on planets.  Join the enterprise today, make your own fortune!

So, I just threw together the above as a rough outline of what a Federal RP industrial corp might do.  It isn't based on one of the megacorporations, it is semi-nationalistic, and non-pvp-centric.

Do you need to worry about PvP? Certainly, but it also enables partnerships with more PvP centric groups, who you can provide with competitive logistics support in exchange for a PvP ally.

If you are Gallente..........what other "legal" and "believable" option you have besides a Private Military Contractor (PMC), paramilitaries in democracies are often regarded as "extremist"....bordering on terrorist (white supremacy?).

The above idea gives a ready "alternative" of Corporate Security Provider.  The difference is however negligible.

[Bong-cha Jones]

Wow, more responses than I expected!  I think some of them highlight a few issues, and I'd like to focus for a bit on them.

Let's start with Bruno and Seriphyn:  you both mentioned identity issues, that there's no clear cause for Federal loyalists, and no real answer to the question of what we are.  This ties in to other things, like the lack of corporate history and the fragmented nature of the community, but ignoring those things for a moment, I think the key here (and Bruno touched on this really insightfully) is that the default is that there are many answers.  I think a good place to start for something universal would be with the Crystal Boulevard chron, 'a love of freedom as hard as diamond'.  Clearly, though, formulating an idea of what the Federation is and who we are is going to be an important part of recruiting new players.

Seri, you mentioned shades of grey.  I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion.  I think more damaging to Federal rp is the extent to which IC opponents have gained control of the narrative, which is again an issue that ties into a lack of long-standing corps and small numbers of characters active.  Plenty of shady dealings probably should be going down, the trick is to find a framework that justifies it and makes it sound reasonable.  If the Amarr can do it well enough, we should certainly be able to    Likewise, I think the default enemy is clearly the Caldari, the problem is (as you pointed out) that the seriousness of that threat is sorely understated.

Last, to address Soter and Kaleigh, I agree that there are lots of rp'ers who are off the radar, but my experiences with alts makes me think that's true of every empire faction.  The thing we lack is large, established corporations.  I don't think the Federation needs, or even really wants, a unified single bloc, but then, not even the Amarr have that.  To state the thesis concisely:  What factors have made large, stable Federal rp corps fail, and what can we do to remedy this?

[orange]

I think more damaging to Federal rp is the extent to which IC opponents have gained control of the narrative

Do you mind expanding on this?

I am an IC opponent and I just don't see the black to your white, having control of the narrative.

[Bong-cha Jones]

I'll try, but I don't have annotations or anything, so it'll come down to my impressions.  That in mind, there seems to be an aggregate effect wherein there will be more voices on the Caldari side than the Gallente one, wherein particular instances will be framed as indicative of the Federation as a whole and, in instances where the Federation may be in the right or at least no less wrong than the rest of the sides, the argument will be related back to the big serious thing the Federation definitely did wrong (the bombardment of Caldari Prime).  Not to put too fine a point on it, but this does bleed OOC from time to time as well.  Which is to say, it's often difficult, in my experience, to have a conversation about the good points of the Fed without people wanting to drop in to mention, at length, it's bad points.  I'd like to make it clear at this point that I believe this conversation is free of that and that I welcome the input of Caldari etc players on the problems in the Federal scene.

This is natural and expected behavior, mind, employing common rhetoric that other factions use routinely.  It's damaging for Federal rp in the specific because there aren't enough visible roleplayers active to counterweight it, and haven't been for quite a while.  So, it's not the root cause of the factions problems in any way, but it's an obstacle that we'll need to address if we want to get anywhere.  I'd like to reiterate that this isn't anything that the Caldari rp'ers should stop, just something the Federals will need to rise up to meet.

Hope that helped a bit.

[Matariki Rain]

Here's a purely personal viewpoint from having considered what it would take to get me interested in playing Gallente.

It needs style.

The military stuff is boring posturing. Necessary, perhaps, but dull.

Like the Caldari, the Gallente are marketers and capitalists. Like the Amarr, Gallente seek to colonise mindspace, but their memes are brands and an idea of freedom. Winning as Gallente has a lot to do with selling Gallente ideas along with Quafe, designer jeans and the EVE equivalent of granite benchtops.

• Source and sell stuff with style.
• Run a salon (not a saloon) for witty and biting discussion of the arts, politics, the good life, and really good hairdressers.
• Pick an in-game goal: "Build up one of the Gallente market hubs so it rivals Jita" perhaps. Advertise, network, supply.
• Sell aspiration. Create desires. Make ads for the latest fashions in food, clothing, body mods, lifestyle, and give the rest of us RPers things to talk about and populate our EVE world.

[Graanvlokkie]

Here's a purely personal viewpoint from having considered what it would take to get me interested in playing Gallente.

It needs style.

The military stuff is boring posturing. Necessary, perhaps, but dull.

Like the Caldari, the Gallente are marketers and capitalists. Like the Amarr, Gallente seek to colonise mindspace, but their memes are brands and an idea of freedom. Winning as Gallente has a lot to do with selling Gallente ideas along with Quafe, designer jeans and the EVE equivalent of granite benchtops.

• Source and sell stuff with style.
• Run a salon (not a saloon) for witty and biting discussion of the arts, politics, the good life, and really good hairdressers.
• Pick an in-game goal: "Build up one of the Gallente market hubs so it rivals Jita" perhaps. Advertise, network, supply.
• Sell aspiration. Create desires. Make ads for the latest fashions in food, clothing, body mods, lifestyle, and give the rest of us RPers things to talk about and populate our EVE world.

This makes me want to RP a Gallente toon

[Seriphyn]

I agree the Caldari Prime bombardment thing is always something that gets brought up, and is difficult to counter it. There is, however, the Sinq Laison regional description that has Caldari raiders burning border settlements. There is Nouvelle Rouvenor too. Seriphyn tries to emphasize that "there is no right in war" when bringing up these examples.

Even with Nouvelle Rouvenor, it was done by partisans, similarly, the bombardment of Caldari Prime was done by a fascist government which is now out of power. The Malkalen disaster was done by a singular individual, too, and no way can be representative of trillions of citizens (that's the thing; the Federation has a whole, incl. its people, are held accountable for Fed atrocities, and the people are often in disagreement with the government).

And even the recent retaking of Caldari Prime is an atrocity for the Gallenteans, due to how traumatic it was (as a 9/11, like I mentioned), and the amount of people that perished in it. Again, there's the counterweight issue, where there'll be more RPers from the opposite side etc.