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[Jade Constantine]

But at the same time, my individualist friend, that's their call. FW is no longer a shiny, new thing full of promise: we know exactly what it is. If the Pew Pew RPers are wasting their time with it, then at this point that's on them. We can't keep blaming CCP for it, because A) it was never really intended for us and B) it's really up to us, as a whole, to accept that and move on.

Move on to what though is the question?

Because it seems the options available right now are either roll up an empire loyalist who fancies the neverending faction war or go play something else entirely. Its not coincidence that the rp community and many of the old alliances and corporations involved with such a thing are in a state of low activity and miniscule enthusiasm for the game. I mean, you could say "well tough, eve ain't for you!" but that doesn't really do much constructively.

Bottom line, lots of people are bored stupid about the game at the moment. Myself amongst them. There is obviously some partizan RP schadenfreude to be had at old enemies losing the will to play (like I said now is the time for somebody to finally humble the fraction!) but the fact there is nobody who cares or has the ability to do that should sound its own warning signals really

[Jakiin]

Move on to what though is the question?

Because it seems the options available right now are either roll up an empire loyalist who fancies the neverending faction war or go play something else entirely. Its not coincidence that the rp community and many of the old alliances and corporations involved with such a thing are in a state of low activity and miniscule enthusiasm for the game. I mean, you could say "well tough, eve ain't for you!" but that doesn't really do much constructively.

Bottom line, lots of people are bored stupid about the game at the moment. Myself amongst them. There is obviously some partizan RP schadenfreude to be had at old enemies losing the will to play (like I said now is the time for somebody to finally humble the fraction!) but the fact there is nobody who cares or has the ability to do that should sound its own warning signals really

Why does an empire loyalist need to play in FW? The Vanguard was a loyalist PvP corp, and while we were Kingdom rather than Empire aligned, there was plenty of justification for us to go join the Amarrian militia if we wanted to.

But we didn't. So we didn't.

We did join the Protectorate, but that wasn't an RP thing so much as it was to try and train some of those wetter behind the ears in the fine arts of PvP* in an arena where it didn't matter and spent most of our resources on hisec wars and lowsec roams targeting pirate corps, because that was what we did, and if anyone had an issue with it they could go straight to hell. I never saw the problem with that, and the bossman certainly never did.

We as a community don't need to travel to some bold, new horizon to get the old days back. We need to - and I know this might sound a little radical - do what we did in the old days. You want to be a Minmatar RPPvPer without doing FW? Fine, go wardec an Amarrian corp. Skulk around Armi or some other lowsec constellation and blow up miners. The advent of Faction Warfare didn't suddenly close all other RPPvP options, it just made them seem less convenient. But I don't plan on being bored just because it's more convenient than having fun.

*I never did get the hang of it, myself.

[Lyn Farel]

Slight Derail:

The funny thing is, they don't need to re-write the entire code for FW to improve it -vastly-.  A few small tweaks and you add some real dynamism, and hence interest.

1. Sort out capture/control mechanics (easy as changing the variables for timers / location spawns / ship restrictions / HP for 'objectives' to be destroyed, etc' A few iterations on sisi to find the right numbers and tweak after revisions.

2. CHANGABLE security status for systems, on all border areas. That .5 system you use to stage out of should not always be .5  If the enemy captures the system next door, it should drop to .4, etc. The 'front' should actually -mean- something, as far as rewards and perils for spending your time there. 

You want to encourage people to pvp in contested areas by offering x rewards, instead of farming sites, etc. There should be tangible ISK rewards for owning an area.

Maybe faction control of an area boosts agent rewards by 300% or something, and only accessible to certain pilots, that sort of thing. Get the PVPers to secure areas for the carebears to make money, and you'd add some dynamics for cooperation and funding of conflicts. This should apply all over the galaxy actually.

Do an expansion where you add facwar/lowec attention to nearly all the border regions. Don't bother with all the mission writing, etc. Just add the gameplay and expand the fronts.

These are cool ideas of course, but I can already imagine how the winning faction would get all the players just because it pays more than the losing one...

[Mizhara]

Move on to what though is the question?

Because it seems the options available right now are either roll up an empire loyalist who fancies the neverending faction war or go play something else entirely. Its not coincidence that the rp community and many of the old alliances and corporations involved with such a thing are in a state of low activity and miniscule enthusiasm for the game. I mean, you could say "well tough, eve ain't for you!" but that doesn't really do much constructively.

Bottom line, lots of people are bored stupid about the game at the moment. Myself amongst them. There is obviously some partizan RP schadenfreude to be had at old enemies losing the will to play (like I said now is the time for somebody to finally humble the fraction!) but the fact there is nobody who cares or has the ability to do that should sound its own warning signals really

Why does an empire loyalist need to play in FW? The Vanguard was a loyalist PvP corp, and while we were Kingdom rather than Empire aligned, there was plenty of justification for us to go join the Amarrian militia if we wanted to.

But we didn't. So we didn't.

We did join the Protectorate, but that wasn't an RP thing so much as it was to try and train some of those wetter behind the ears in the fine arts of PvP* in an arena where it didn't matter and spent most of our resources on hisec wars and lowsec roams targeting pirate corps, because that was what we did, and if anyone had an issue with it they could go straight to hell. I never saw the problem with that, and the bossman certainly never did.

We as a community don't need to travel to some bold, new horizon to get the old days back. We need to - and I know this might sound a little radical - do what we did in the old days. You want to be a Minmatar RPPvPer without doing FW? Fine, go wardec an Amarrian corp. Skulk around Armi or some other lowsec constellation and blow up miners. The advent of Faction Warfare didn't suddenly close all other RPPvP options, it just made them seem less convenient. But I don't plan on being bored just because it's more convenient than having fun.

*I never did get the hang of it, myself.

This, pretty much. The most impact RP-PvP wise I've had was when we exchanged a thousand Amarrians for a million Matari slaves. We didn't even glance at the FW. It was all done through wardecs and normal interaction, not orbiting buttons. There were less than five of us online at any given moment, but we could easily keep up a couple of wardecs and terrorized several corps into submission while striking at the heart of Empire capsuleer infrastructure.

Got PvP, RP and actually having an effect (disbanded enemy corps even). No FW needed for that.

Sure, CCP haven't added much in these areas but it's not like they've removed any of it either.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Mainly because CCP - unfortunately - made it quite clear that occupied systems are having their planets invaded. With the possible exceptions of some of the old inroads to 0.0 made by RP alliances of yore, nothing the playerbase has done on its own - meaning, without Live Events/AURORA assistance - even remotely approaches the scale of that.

So, in my opinion trying to say "We're doing other things!" ends up looking like this (using a stereotypical Amarr as an example):

"In the past months I have set up indoctrination facilities and brought one hundred thousand new persons into the faith! I have also crushed heretic Blood Raider outposts trying to establish themselves in our space!"
"That's great. By the way, the Minmatar are occupying [X number] of our systems. You know there's probably at least [X times 2,000,000] Amarrian citizens down there, right?"

This isn't to say I personally disagree with players running stuff unrelated to FW. In fact, I very much approve of people getting up and putting in the time to make their own stuff - hell, 90% of my RP occurs well outside the framework of FW - but it feels like any time anyone attempts to accomplish something, the storyline CCP has laid out turns around and whacks them on the head, then waves furiously going "NO! I'm important! Look at meeeeeeeeeee!"

[Gottii]

Mainly because CCP - unfortunately - made it quite clear that occupied systems are having their planets invaded. With the possible exceptions of some of the old inroads to 0.0 made by RP alliances of yore, nothing the playerbase has done on its own - meaning, without Live Events/AURORA assistance - even remotely approaches the scale of that.

So, in my opinion trying to say "We're doing other things!" ends up looking like this (using a stereotypical Amarr as an example):

"In the past months I have set up indoctrination facilities and brought one hundred thousand new persons into the faith! I have also crushed heretic Blood Raider outposts trying to establish themselves in our space!"
"That's great. By the way, the Minmatar are occupying [X number] of our systems. You know there's probably at least [X times 2,000,000] Amarrian citizens down there, right?"

This isn't to say I personally disagree with players running stuff unrelated to FW. In fact, I very much approve of people getting up and putting in the time to make their own stuff - hell, 90% of my RP occurs well outside the framework of FW - but it feels like any time anyone attempts to accomplish something, the storyline CCP has laid out turns around and whacks them on the head, then waves furiously going "NO! I'm important! Look at meeeeeeeeeee!"

Esna is also no doubt intrigued by the variety offered by an entire planet of potential harem wimmez...

[Merdaneth]

As long as RP concerns itself mostly with (non-existent) NPCs and the (non-interactive) PF backstory, this is never going to change.

As long as significant in-game events concern itself with things that are mostly outside the realm of RP (CSM elections) this is never going to change.