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[Arkady Sadik]

Dropbear is watching this thread, Arkady, and I did prod him on Twitter earlier about your concerns with Balginia, so hopefully some progress will come on that front. Just gotta be patient (even more than you already have been). 

:-) Thank you.

I'm actually not too worried about the good admiral. The Republic (or rather, the Fleet) not replying to our mail is not too much of a problem - happens, we're after all just some capsuleers. (And it's a recurring problem. Back in Aurora times, we actually had some Republic dude tell us about some story arc "stay out of it!" and then never ever show up again, never reply to mails, etc. - so we were basically forced to not participate. THAT I was/am bitter about, but that was long ago. The current thing is hardly comparable, we still have lots of options. :-))

I used it as one example of a general "problem". I think the "A'J story arc" would win a lot by rewarding various ways of interacting with the whole storyline, as opposed to rewarding simply membership in the project itself.

A few examples that do not involve EM:

Sansha loyalists should have some kind of incentive and the opportunities to actually harm the project now that Kuvakei declared hostilities. This would both mean that Sansha loyalists will do something against the project as well as giving incentive to other people to be actually wary of the Sansha people, as opposed to having to think "they're just here so they can enjoy the CCP RP as well, it would be OOC rude to exclude them."

Caldari loyalists should have an incentive and opportunities to hunt down Tukoss or his research to return some of it back to the State. Again, this would mean that the State loyalists can do something more than put bounties on the head of a person whose death likely means nothing, and it means that project members again have a reason to wary of the hostiles.

It does seem to me that a lot of the actions of the different divisions right now happen mainly because players do not want to be OOCly rude to other players and do not want to exclude them from "the CCP RP."

(Well, actually, if you ignore the part of "they're RPers, I'm sure they'll behave", it currently looks a lot like the project is being taken over by some criminals for their own benefit, abusing the extreme naivity of some people in the process. It's funny seeing it this way. :-D)

(Oh. And. Hey, Dropbear, you're awesome! This has to be said from time to time. (And is unrelated to the post above.))

[Kaleigh Doyle]

How about, 'if my enemies are allowed to participate and I don't,  my beloved Republic may be at a disadvantage'? It's not that hard to devise some reasoning to participate if so inclined.

Sure. That means our participation is limited to not contributing at all, but only taking out anything.

The scope of the project is discovering the origins of sleepers and wormhole phenomena, not creating doomsday weapon. All information discovered is public knowledge.  I'm trying to see the logic behind 'working with my enemy is bad!' when clearly the sleepers have no factional interests.

Not that I expect you to explain your characters motivations, but it just seems odd.

[Arkady Sadik]

I'm trying to see the logic behind 'working with my enemy is bad!'

Hm. I'm not sure how to explain this any better, really. The whole logic is "obvious" to me, and what others do "seems odd". It seems that it is the same to you, just the other way around. :-)

Let's say you find yourself in a fist fight with someone. Bad situation, really. You might end up with a lot of bruises if this goes bad. Even if you win in the end, it will still not be pretty.

Then you get the option: Ok, put in some effort, and you both could get a gun.

Will you put in effort to do this? The end result is that the fight will have a high chance of ending even worse than before. Even if you win, now you're not only likely to get bruises, you also are likely to have some serious wounds.

If the research is public, why put in the effort at all? You can have him put in all the effort - if there's something coming out of it, you will both have it. If not - nothing is lost. It's much smarter to put the effort into private research so you can actually have an advantage.

(It's not by chance that Project Manhattan was not a combined German/US research project.)

To me, this is also unrelated as to whether the project is actively researching weapon technology or not. Humans are very ingenious when it comes to utilizing latest scientific research for means to harm each other, and looking at T3 cruisers, it's highly likely that research into sleeper tech will reveal something useable in the conflicts.

My character also thinks that if Nation bothers to say "Nation will not let Hilen Tukoss's actions go unchecked", that whatever the good doctor is doing might pose a threat to Nation. Giving Nation loyalists direct access to the research, enabling them to sabotage or misdirect it if necessary, or at least take the fruits quickly to develop a protection against it - or even using A'J resources to develop a protection against it - is close to criminal.

[Ghost Hunter]

Dropbear is watching this thread, Arkady, and I did prod him on Twitter earlier about your concerns with Balginia, so hopefully some progress will come on that front. Just gotta be patient (even more than you already have been). 

Sansha loyalists should have some kind of incentive and the opportunities to actually harm the project now that Kuvakei declared hostilities. This would both mean that Sansha loyalists will do something against the project as well as giving incentive to other people to be actually wary of the Sansha people, as opposed to having to think "they're just here so they can enjoy the CCP RP as well, it would be OOC rude to exclude them."

Caldari loyalists should have an incentive and opportunities to hunt down Tukoss or his research to return some of it back to the State. Again, this would mean that the State loyalists can do something more than put bounties on the head of a person whose death likely means nothing, and it means that project members again have a reason to wary of the hostiles.

It would be nice to see opportunities for general anti-Arek'Jaalan shenanigans. The only viable choice right now seems to be spying, infiltration, and thievery - which is a very particular subset of EVE gameplay and over all hard to sell to people who like to pewpew.

Much like for the Sansha Events though, I have a hard time visualizing how they can offer anti-Arek'Jaalan chances without someone pulling Nullsec connections and having a huge fleet shit all over everything. Considering the stupid amounts of ISK the evacuation Charon freighter had in it, it wouldn't be hard to sell the lure of that much money again to pretty much anyone.

[Casiella]

Regarding the subject of character versus player choices: I think it's a little bit of a red herring to suggest that one doesn't influence the other.

Certainly, I'm not the type to suggest that you (e.g. Arkady-p) should do what you want and shoehorn Arkady-c into things that you want, even if they break the character. On the other hand, our characters are not automatons, reacting in the same predictable way to a given stimulus. (At least not in general: characters that do react that way might provide their own interesting exception, I suppose.)

So none of us would say that no Republic loyalist could possibly get involved with the project because Amarrian or Nation pilots have done so. You may decide that Arkady-c will not, and obviously that's a valid choice. But that differs from the implication that Arkady-c could not do so simply because he is a loyalist.

That said: Dropbear made it abundantly clear to me that he keeps a very very close eye on reading Backstage. CCP rules hamstring him a little bit in his responses on 'external sites' like this one, but posting here in the hopes he will see it is a pretty good way to go.

Alternately, finding your way to events he attends (like the VETO summer camp in Nashville right now) or reaching out to him on the CCP forums or Twitter also work really well. At heart, he's an EVE roleplayer who wants the same things most of us want, at least in a general sense.

[Revan Neferis]

On that note, I have changed Revan's ic stance to hostile towards Arek'Jalaan.
The note can be seen here: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1565142&page=1#6

It's not really the side I'd like to take ic because i enjoy the controversy that revan brings to the table, but my group in the eve have become extremelly anti this " good approach " with the rp and not quite willing to support our ic alligned stance anymore.
As I play very little nowadays and they are the ones who roll the isk investments and use their time keeping things happening at space I found better to let my guys enjoy the event the way they want, which is taking the usual hostile approach with mercs and so on.

IC, Revan stired some nerves there in order to pick a few obvious reactions which worked pretty well as she planned, so now its just let things move on naturally.
I wont be able to follow much the event myself , ill leave the war decs to be decided by the people playing, but ill keep checking things when possible.

[Arkady Sadik]

So none of us would say that no Republic loyalist could possibly get involved with the project because Amarrian or Nation pilots have done so.

I don't think anyone ever claimed that? If you read my posts as that I am sorry, I need to work on my communication skills.

I was criticizing the idea that "just opening up the project to everyone allows everyone to participate." It doesn't. It allows everyone to shoehorn their characters into participating, which is not fun for everyone and not everyone enjoys the resulting kind of RP.


Edited to add: And before someone jumps to that conclusion, as mentioned above, I am quite fine with having "CCP RP" that I can not (really) participate in, as long as I know that there will be, at some point, some "CCP RP" that I can. My main worry with the current situation is that people start to think that this is "the" way to run "CCP RP" events because they think that it's somehow "all-inclusive." Hence why I speak up and try to point out that no, it isn't :-)

It's a bit like concerts. It's impossible to make a concert with "music that everyone likes". Hence why you have some concerts that play this and some concerts that play that. It would take a lot out of the music scene if you'd go "ok, we only play country now, and as everyone can buy a ticket, that means we are catering for everyone." While certainly possible, it would remove quite a bit of variety. :-)

[Julianus Soter]

It would be nice to see opportunities for general anti-Arek'Jaalan shenanigans. The only viable choice right now seems to be spying, infiltration, and thievery - which is a very particular subset of EVE gameplay and over all hard to sell to people who like to pewpew.

You mean like having a Sansha loyalist as a leader of the Security division? . . . 

Until we start undocking and doing shit, the most Friends of Nation can do is troll the evelopedia pages and fuck things up there. But maybe that's a bannable offense? I'm not sure.

[Revan Neferis]

Sansha loyalists should have some kind of incentive and the opportunities to actually harm the project now that Kuvakei declared hostilities. This would both mean that Sansha loyalists will do something against the project as well as giving incentive to other people to be actually wary of the Sansha people, as opposed to having to think "they're just here so they can enjoy the CCP RP as well, it would be OOC rude to exclude them."

Caldari loyalists should have an incentive and opportunities to hunt down Tukoss or his research to return some of it back to the State. Again, this would mean that the State loyalists can do something more than put bounties on the head of a person whose death likely means nothing, and it means that project members again have a reason to wary of the hostiles.

As someone else already stated, for a project that is thus far based on wiki writings and drama on channels the only steps that can be taken by our side of the rp ( meaning those who wants to play hostile against it ) is to create the so called harm from within. Of course we have always in every group those rp capsuleers who their characters are easy to manipulate ic due to their emotional fragelty, they are easy to be lead to break down and do or say compromising things and cause all sort of paranoias from spreading their emotional outburts once they are rightly triggered to it.
This is what Revan did using a few of the project leads to give her the missing reasons to declare hostility.
Like this example, sansha is certainly using the same elements with their mere presence and acting from within, as are others, there are plenty of  things that can be done at this stage of the project from a hostile point of view.
Someone said messing with wiki, I do hope people don't resort to that, not sure if its bannable offense but it is the least to say very bad taste to do so. There are too many ways to play the hostile role without entering such layers, and psycological warfare is one of them specially when people are already so susceptible to it.

To those more interested at pvp, as Soter said the project needs to take off first and start doing things at space but meanwhile the usual methods of war decs can be done to entertain. And of course you can always use alts, Revan just declared her hostile intentions openly because it was part of my rp and my intention to play along with my friends on this, but anyone else who still wants to rp hostile and remain within the project can easily do so, the whole framework of the project is set to allow it.

To resume there are plenty of ways to participate at the ccp event, either being pro or against it, it takes just adjusting your line of play to adapt to it.
It's not as exciting as the faction events in my opinion, this " all in " does turns a lot of people off and the practical side seems to excluding people more than including but I guess Dropbear deserves credit for trying this new line of approach and its still too early to say if it works or not.

[Casiella]

Outside of occasional field expeditions, this particular story line is not intended to involve space. That's what the Sansha and upcoming FW story lines are for.

[Revan Neferis]

Outside of occasional field expeditions, this particular story line is not intended to involve space. That's what the Sansha and upcoming FW story lines are for.

Depends of how you see it. In eve, everything will involve space if you want to, its where the game IS after all.
I agree that the core idea of the event is just perhaps wiki wrtting and channel interactions with little spaceships expeditions now and than, which is fine. It's a sort of event that has public too, like my rp model events restricted to forums, channels x my auctoramentum gladiatorium events restricted to forum/ space. But even the model event had consequences at space, i was surprised, ( positively surprised ) at how they could manage even that event turn to it.
There are many forms to build events and each will attract a certain public, which is very cool.
The point i want to make about "taking it to involve space" is simply because game mechanisms. You have x pilot participating. x pilot is member of a corporation, alliance. x pilot is one member of perhaps other 100 people who arent participating on the event and are well, playing the natural eve environment at space.
So you war dec their alliance based on the concept of this x pilot involvement which will affect his entire alliance in return. Those people are at space and they will be the ones affected by this butterfly effect that eve sandbox lets us play with.
This is just one example of how you can make it involve space if you take that angle.
It doesn't mean much if the project itself doesnt require people to undock. It's just about the consequences of several venues that can be used to translate to things to happen at space, much like the igs has been used to fish for wars during several rp ocassions, channels can be used to the same purpose. There is always those who will give you plenty of reasons to justify actions one way or another.

At the end, no matter what rp mechanism you are willing to put to test, pretty much everything can be taken to consequences at space. I think thats the beauty of eve too, you dont need consensus or "approval " to get what you want done. All you need is the game mechanisms tools for it and you can interact with pretty much everything and everyone you want with or without mutual agreement.
 

[Victoria Stecker]

IC, Revan stired some nerves there in order to pick a few obvious reactions which worked pretty well as she planned, so now its just let things move on naturally.
I wont be able to follow much the event myself , ill leave the war decs to be decided by the people playing, but ill keep checking things when possible.

I saw some of that and rather frowned at it. Then again, I consider it poor form to go after a character because the player may not know how a word is spelled, despite knowing the word, what it means, and how to use it. It comes across as a cheap OOC shot to score points in an IC argument (See: Winning RP) and seeing Revan resorting to such petty crap while trying to demand respect and be taken seriously induces severe eye-rolling. Of course, if the goal was to burn all the bridges and run, she did fine there.

On a related note, while I don't get the IC justification for Revan turning hostile toward the project, I certainly get it OOC and am actually quite pleased. Particularly if it leads to a trimming of the fat from the project, maybe drive off a few of those who seem to be there for their 15 minutes rather than actually contributing. So that should be interesting, I think it'll be a fun development.

[Mizhara]

Making fun of typos and misspelling is a perfectly valid approach IC, I feel. While live communication may require a certain speed and thus get prone to such errors, it's not really that hard to avoid the worst of it. Capsuleers are supposed to be somewhat educated at least, and it's fairly reasonable to expect a certain level of eloquence. Hell, I'm a slackwitted northern Norwegian barbarian with shit for education and hardpacked snow for brains and I still think I can manage a certain standard of communication. However, it's a very dangerous game to play when it'll make people ten times as sensitive towards such things with your own posts and utterings. Which brings me to Revan's IGS posts.

Damn, Revan, you really need an editor or proof-reader. Your content is great, even if from Miz's IC point of view it's retarded, but the spelling. Oh dear Lords, the spelling. I wouldn't have thought much about it if I didn't also know that very thing has been a weapon in Revan's arsenal against others in the verbal fencing grounds. Like I said before, I don't mind it at all, but I really expected Revan IC to be a damn sight more eloquent and her posts far less riddled with such things.

This is just generalized advice, and Revan's post is just an example of it but if you want to play the "ur speling sux" game to gain a step up from others, use a dictionary, spellchecker or any of the plethora of tools available to make damn sure you're not making yourself a target in return. Think like a sharpshooter when you're doing competitive RP, people. When you squeeze that trigger, you'll want to make sure your own cover isn't compromised, or if it is you'd damn well better have something hidden up your sleeve to deal with that.

[Victoria Stecker]

Capsuleers are supposed to be somewhat educated at least, and it's fairly reasonable to expect a certain level of eloquence. more eloquent and her posts far less riddled with such things.

I guess I take this and go in the opposite direction, treating it as if the character got the spelling right even if the player didn't, unless it's apparent that they are trying to play a character with poor spelling. Otherwise, we basically exclude anyone who may have the vocabulary but not the spelling skill from such debate, because they're going to be mocked IC for an OOC characteristic. It's about the same to me as going after someone's spelling simply because they don't speak english natively.

[Casiella]

Given that we're not actually communicating ICly in English, I don't worry about such things.

Anyway: consequences in space, yes, absolutely. That's part of the goal of catalyzing player conflict. But the arc events themselves (i.e. the interaction with the actors) mostly takes place "stationside" for this particular one.

Whether that drives player characters to blow each other up is another issue, obviously.