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[Silas Vitalia]

As I think this is an important topic let's have a civil debate on this.

I have always been of the opinion that your IC goings-on need to reflect your In-game goings on. 

A three-week old pilot flying an Ibus is going to have a -different- range (not -better- or -worse-) of RP possibilities than a 2 year player flying an Abaddon, or a 5 year business-oriented player who has billions of ISK and controls an entire financial sector.  I think we can agree on that.

Just the same, that three-week old player is going to maybe have a great story about the crew of his cruiser doing x, y, and z, while the 4 year player might have a 'broader' story relating to his own assets and the valiant crew of his carrier.

The player in the three-man corp is not going to claim to have 500,000 employees and paramilitaries, and the player with the 500 man corp is perfectly reasonable in doing so.

Ergo we can and I think should make reasonable claims about each other based on character age, assets, wealth, combat efficiency, etc. 

If you claim to be an ace pod pilot, I better see some kills.  Metrics that are 'unprovable' in game I think we can make reasonable assumptions about based on some of those previous criteria.

With our specific senario:

We are not young players, we have been around for years. We've spent -months- working very, very hard, to take and maintain those null sec systems. It has been a -major- effort to keep a coalition of hundreds of pilots together, put out drama fires nearly daily, FC hundreds of people (or cat-herding as I like to call it), in order to achieve our goals.  I absolutely feel we've 'earned' our leeway on some RP, and a few things are justified:

If our name is on the tickers, it's our systems. If we have built all the infrastructure, built our own stations, maintain dozens of structures, and operate hundreds of capsuleers in the area, it is extremely reasonable to assume the planets below are -completely- under our thumb. CONCORD does not exist out here to protect the populace. Lawless, unrestricted space.  If we are nice freedom loving types, we would have set up a little utopia of free societies on each of them.  We are the bad guys, and hence the gnashing of teeth and hearing the lamentations of the locals as we plunder, convert, and bend to our collective wills, etc.

I am -extremely- careful to never make claims against others I cannot back-up reasonably, and I think most of you, like me or not, can vouch for me over the years.

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but my guys have worked extremely hard for months on end to get where we are, and I absolutely want to reflect that RP-wise.

I would love opinions, criticisms, etc so please have at it and let's talk about this.

[Ember Vykos]

The whole time I flew with you on Ember you did a really good job of keeping things in perspective RP wise. You never claimed anything outlandish or that you couldn't reasonably back up. Far as I can tell you still do that, and if you want to have a bit of IC fun with all the OOC drama control you put into keeping the coalition together then I think you're perfectly entitled to it. If it's anything like I remember then really you deserve it. The way I see it if you hold sov in a system then yeah you can raze, pillage, and convert the systems populace to your heart's content.

[Victoria Stecker]

Playing devil's advocate, I think it's possible that the post which provoked this was misinterpreted. When I read it, I read 'power' as a verb, and "to power RP" as synonymous with "to drive RP" or something like that.

Back on topic, I agree with most, if not all of what you've said. You're managing to RP while holding SOV, which is a bitch, as Providence proved repeatedly.

[Ciarente]

Personally, as far as my own RP is concerned, I do not claim things that would be verified by game mechanics if Cia had done them, but she has not done (killed X podders, built T3); I consider myself bound to the things that are verifiable by game mechanics (I do not claim Cia does not build battleships, nor that Cia does not run planetary colonies).

I am less of a 'if it doesn't happen in space, it never happened' purist than some I have known: I am happy, for example, to have Cia take the interbus to visit somewhere rather than fly myself there.

I also claim, and this is where there's the potential for conflict, things that I think are a reasonable extrapolation of ingame mechanics. Of course, everyone's definition of reasonable is different. Mine includes that, for example, CEO has some secretarial support, that Cia has a bunch of crew commensurate with the number and size of her ships, that she has guards and security.

As a member of an immersionist RP corp, my interactions with other players are IC and really happened regardless of whether those players are RPers - either hostile or co-operative. I just spent several hours flying in fleet with a mixed group of RPers and non-RPers fighting an Incursion. There were more non-RPers in fleet than RPers, but I still consider that Cia actually flew in fleet against the Sansha and completed a number of CONCORD assignments. 

I have blue with a number of RP-lite or non-RP corps and alliances. If I shoot one of their members who is not a RPers, Cia has still shot a blue.

I personally allow the people I RP with latitude when it comes to things that plausibly could or plausibly could not be reflected by IG mechanics and the API. For example, I know players who have trained their characters to biology V to claim their characters are medical doctors, which is awesome. I also know players whose characters were medically trained before becoming pilots and don't have any of that 'fancy pod-training' in it, but RP their characters have medical knowledge, which in my opinion is entirely valid and plausible.

 

[Borza]

CCP themselves have proven there is much scope for RP beyond what we can see in space, through the pod interface.
Do our crews draw no pay? Are they automatically trained and replaced without our knowledge or input? CCP say we have crews on all our ships, but I've never seen them in EVE.

Anything that isnt explicitly forbidden <i>and makes sense/is fairly plausible/isn't able to be represented ingame</i> can be RPd between capsuleers if they agree to it. So for example smuggling people onto and off a planet surface should be doable, at least in some cases, in varying quantities depending partly on location. i.e. it makes more sense in say, U'K liberating slaves from 9UY and the temperate worlds there than from Amarr Prime. Though you might just be able to plausible kidnap a single individual or something from there if you played it well.

[Mizhara]

I will agree with almost everything you said, Silas, because I'm definitely a proponent of 'prove your shit in-game'. However, there's still the question of how far does capsuleer power reach, even in nullsec? I once wrote blogposts about capsuleer raids on planetbound areas and Holdings, and to this day I shudder when I think about it. I'm actually ashamed at having powered that through in an IC manner, because fuck... I really can't prove that shit in-game.

Is there any PF at all that can support capsuleer fleets swooping down on planets (yes, even in nullsec) and start hauling off the local population as slaves? Or the other way around, freeing slaves? We do know we're heavily limited by CONCORD interfering with our targeting systems and so on. We can't even register a lot of the shit happening in space, according to PF. Now we can suddenly swoop down on planets and start tearing up their populations and haul them off in shackles?

Even our Planetary Interaction stuff is just remote administration, while we sit in space and wait for the automated systems to launch shit to the custom's office.

... how are you going to prove massive planetary invasions in-game, Silas? It's setting dangerous precedents. And even if we do accept it as something capsuleers can do, where do we draw the line? Can I do that lowsec? There won't be any Navy fleets around if I start dropping command centers in Amarr lowsec and start hauling off 'freed slaves'. Hell, there won't be any in highsec either, because as a capsuleer I can't interact with the planetary population like that.

I just don't see it as compatible with PF that we are suddenly capable of tearing up Nullsec however the fuck we want. It's a slippery slope to set this precedent.

[Louella Dougans]

PI space ports have civilian traffic too.

in nullsec, e.g. in Delve, the blood raiders occasionally find colonies of people living on planets that they did not know about.

so, in nullsec, where there is not so much infrastructure or government or things of that nature, then it may be reasonable to do things of that nature.

[Ciarente]

The limitations and extent of  planetary interaction are a live and unresolved issue. Personally, I think that if we have the IG mechanical power to breed and export livestock, it's not implausible that on a planet within our control and with no other intervening forces i.e. CONCORD or the navies, our 'livestock' might include humans.

[Mizhara]

I honestly don't see CONCORD having forgotten about nullsec populations when they first chained and limited our interaction capabilities as capsuleers. There's so much we're limited from interacting with, as a conscious and direct result of CONCORD deciding "no, that's off-limits". Our Titan pilots can't DD planets and I honestly don't see us launching massive fleets of soldiers and slavers (or soldiers and freedom fighters from the other side of things) as something CONCORD wouldn't have put massive limitations on.

Hell, even during the Incursions, all we got to do was roflstomp the Sansha ships in space. CONCORD's greatest resource, the capsuleers, were even then stopped from giving help to the planetbound populations.

[Silas Vitalia]

Planetary Interaction: no freeing slaves or slaving in highsec, doesn't pass the logic test. Plenty of inconsistancies in game mechanics but thnk about it: the Republic government sure as hell would not allow me to set up an installation inside the Republic and start rounding up locals for export. Even if i can physically put down a factory, it doesn't pass the the reasonable test.


Lowsec: I don't think you can justify -too- much. Concord rules are still in effect, sovereignty of the Empires is recognized, criminal acts are punished (albiet ineffectively) through game mechanics.  We can reasonably assume the factions have a handle on 'most' things in lowsec.

I think there's still plenty of wiggle room though in lowsec for more 'outlaw' stories and activities with reasonable judgement.


I feel like null-sec is a completely different ball game. To claim a system represents the investments of billions of isk, and the wherewithal to back it up militarily.  We are literally talking of hundreds of billlions of isk invested in assets, many hundreds of capsuleers, and even with a conservative estimate of alliance non capsuleer support, millions of individuals working under our banner. Sov-holding Alliances are nation-states unto themselves. 

With absolutely no 'government' to speak of, no outside intervention from any empire, and complete lawlessness, it seems very reasonable in my mind that that is 'our' space and everything in it is ours, until that time in which we lose control.

If I can put 50 capital ships in orbit in-game, with a few hundred thousand crew, this is not a stretch that we are running things down below.

[Ghost Hunter]

Worth noting in regards to PI: During the Live Events, the Empire actors recognized the efforts of player PI structures being setup in order to help populations we were abducting escape the Sansha. This was primarily in low-security from what I saw, I did not see anything occur in high security.

I do not know what became of these people who were taken off the planets or otherwise sheltered by those running the PI, though.

We did not bother with this on the Sansha side of things as we could not figure out how PI setup to abduct people would work, if at all. Presumably the Empires could destroy our PI facilities on the planets relatively easily, thus rendering our abduction facilities pointless to setup. We looked at utilizing starbases for this on the space side of things, but setup difficulties and limited use meant it never got to fully pan out.

[Mizhara]

I would completely agree with you... if we were just spaceship captains. We're capsuleers, though, and we're extremely limited in our capacity for planetary interaction. Hell, even in space we're extremely limited. We know PF states our ships and interfaces are set to not let us even target or even see a lot of what happens in space. I just don't see how we as capsuleers can suddenly circumvent all those limitations just because we move to nullsec. It's something we bring with us, as far as I'm concerned.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Anything that isnt explicitly forbidden <i>and makes sense/is fairly plausible/isn't able to be represented ingame</i> can be RPd between capsuleers if they agree to it.

This is a good starting point. I'd add that when considering something Esna is going to do that may not be explicitely covered by RP, I try to logically reason out the chance that this would be possible by various factors that are both "common sense" and by related, but NOT directly related in-game information.

Examples:

1: Esna wants a deadspace outpost of his own so he can head off somewhere and not be bugged by people - kind of a retreat-to-paradise, except in space. Now, there's no explicit PF that shows capsuleers building their own deadspace, BUT we see a ton of deadspace complexes in space that appear abandoned or nonfunctional - asteroid mines, trading posts, places damaged by old pirate raids, etc... so, odds are he could search around a bit, find one that isn't being used by anyone else, and use some money to patch it up, import some defense turrets, and refinish the interior. Seems fair to me, despite the fact we DO NOT SEE other capsuleers building deadspace depots.

2: Esna has at various times claimed to be running an operation which snaps up slaves and rehabilitates those who've been abused. For along time, this existed in words alone, and only recently has it taken form as a cargo container in one of my hangars with some people and supplies in it. Nonetheless, we still have no PF showing capsuleers doing anything like this, nor do I have a mechanic that allows me to say "these people are being cared for and helped!" It's solely dependant on my words. I would still go along with this, though, because - frankly - what is STOPPING a capsuleer from doing this? Doctors can be hired, supplies purchased, and slaves bought; there's no PF that says capsuleers can't have humanitarian operations in their hangars.

In both these cases, it is purely logic and reason (at least logic and reason from my POV) that suggests what I am doing here is "legit" despite there being no mechanic or specific prime fiction to support either situation (I suppose it also helps that both are open to player interaction, though in both cases you will again have to face the security measures that I've reasoned Esna would put in place).

[Half Cocked Jack]

Regarding the issue of RP and planets, I'll agree with the underlying current of thought here that game mechanics has the relationship fairly borked. Shouldn't all those planets in the FW zones be not much more than balls of bloody ash by now?

But on Silas's main topic, *signed.* A month old RP alt that "flies a legion" doesn't do anything for me. There needs to be something there to back up IC claims a) when they affect other characters and b) when they affect the playable domain of New Eden.  Heck, I've been grinding missions for around three months now to get the standings I feel necessary to justify calling myself a Republic businessman.

[Ciarente]

2: Esna has at various times claimed to be running an operation which snaps up slaves and rehabilitates those who've been abused. For along time, this existed in words alone, and only recently has it taken form as a cargo container in one of my hangars with some people and supplies in it. Nonetheless, we still have no PF showing capsuleers doing anything like this, nor do I have a mechanic that allows me to say "these people are being cared for and helped!" It's solely dependant on my words. I would still go along with this, though, because - frankly - what is STOPPING a capsuleer from doing this? Doctors can be hired, supplies purchased, and slaves bought; there's no PF that says capsuleers can't have humanitarian operations in their hangars.

Re-Aw runs a program for former slaves. IG, it's a can, where we put the slaves, with food and, um ... liquor and stuff.  As far as game mechanics are concerned, we could be imprisoning them. We RP that it involves medical care and vocational training and so on, but we can't support it through any game mechanic.