Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Merdaneth]

At a suggestion here I read the story about Santimonia and Silphy. While I think CCP Abraxas does great writing, he is clearly not writing for our characters. Most of his stories involve some kind of secret, or certainly things our characters won't be privy too. Once again, this story gives away information that would be one of the least likely things our characters would ever know about the EVE world.

To me, it can spoil stuff. I know there is probably no in-game way to find out that the Zephyr program was a ruse for some covert data-gathering operation, but it is difficult to step into a Zephyr again without considering it. Can one's character ever arrive at the conclusion that the Zephyr program was such a ploy himself after you have read the Chronicle without.

It feels like a Game Master is giving me a campaign spoiler and expects my character still to act as if he knows nothing. That's hard to do. Very hard to do. It is like someone showing Frodo that Gandalf's battle and victory over the Balrog, and then expecting Frodo to behave just as he would have done when he still assumed Gandalf was dead. I think it is nearly impossible for most of us to compartimentalize this information in such a way that it doesn't affect our characters thought processes.

For this reasons I often avoid reading chronicles and personal blogs/diaries by other characters. Merdaneth would normally have no access to this information, because they tend to influence the way I have Merdaneth see things. Some things I may attempt to consciously ignore, but I can never truly get that exciting feeling that I've stumbled onto something just by playing my character.

I'm writing this especially because I've had that experience today, with Merdaneth stumbling on something totally constructed out of IC clues and being completely right on the money with his assumptions, and me be completely surprised at every turn.

I want to be able to discover the relationship between Santimonia and Silphy, and uncover the great Zephyr coverup. I don't want to read it in a Chronicle and be denied the possibility of genuine feeling I would have when I make such a discovery. For me, RP is not just the fun of interacting with others, it is the sense of wonder you get when exploring a story with an open end, a sense of adventure. Being privy to the inner secrets of the high and mighty of the EVE world destroys much of that sense.

I wonder how those who are involved in this whole Intaki story arc feel about all these secrets being revealed to them while still remaining inaccessible IC.

[Louella Dougans]

I agree with the inner workings of things being exposed for all to see being  

[spoiler]Like the whole isogen-5 causing wormhole things.
Chronicles had Jamyl's weapon, Rogue Drones, Sisters of Eve, Terran space-stations, Thukker Tribe, Blood Raiders and SOCT etc, etc. all faffing around, to create the explosion which caused wormholes everywhere

And there was very, very little evidence of any of that ingame. If you didn't read the chronicle, you don't have much to go on regarding the sudden appearance of them.

the things like in Theodicy too, a character says "this is the most well-kept secret in the entire Federation" or words to that effect, so that like 4-5 people in the entire Federation would know it. And yet that's blurted out, and some people quote it as objective fact.

Or things like the name of Idonis Ardishapur's Starkmanir girlfriend. Who other than her and Idonis would know it? And both of them are long dead.[/spoiler]

You can dismiss it as gossip when anyone brings it up, but it's still abit much  

[Merdaneth]

awk...

Louella, I haven't read most of these things and haven't been exposed to them. Prefer to discuss it without the examples....

[Louella Dougans]

sorry 

[Casiella]

Many of these secrets pertain to things that may not interest every character. That is, everyone will have something that interests them, but not most of it.

So, for example, the Zephyr program might have something that appeals to me, but not necessarily the background in the End of the World chronicles. Everything else interests me, perhaps, and Casi would love to know, but those other bits just don't have anything to do with the sorts of things about which she really cares.

I think you can read them without assuming your character must delve into the deepest, darkest secrets around.

[Havohej]

I think the Chronicles are a bit like IC blogs.  There comes a point where it's up to a roleplayer to understand what their character would or would not know.  Our characters might know some of the names involved, might even know a little about who they are.  Other things might be heard as rumors or not heard at all.  But the fiction isn't written for our characters, that much seems very clear.  To me it seems that the fiction of the Chronicles and the novels is written for us, the players, to enjoy a bit more depth in the EVE setting.

So while we might not know about the stuff that happened in the Chron Ante, I'm sure it's common knowledge how rogue drones came to be.  Things that deal strictly with world building but reveal no politics or sekrit infurmashunz! would also be common knowledge (fedos smell like boiled ass, ships have crews, etc).  In the Chronicle Scars, you have a direct private interaction between two characters... our characters wouldn't know anything about that, but that Chron also gave us a look at how difficult life is to begin with for all those Nefantar and Starkmanir refugees, living in ghettos that would make someone from South Central L.A. step back... not everyone would know the reality of conditions for these refugees - it's probably not a topic of discussion over the office water cooler - but interested parties could easily find out about it.

tl;dr, I think it's written to entertain the player and it's up to us to pick and choose what our character does or doesn't know, and out of that part, to pick and choose what our character does or doesn't believe.  Especially if another PC starts talking about the stuff!

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

If it's being done properly the secret squirrel stuff should be giving us a notion of how the world works around us. It also speaks to tone and atmosphere.

That said.

It does seem weird that chronicles and the new novel paint the SoE as painstakingly neutral and with a significant proportion that is hostile to eggers. Yet I have been missioning for them & they send me out to blow up pirates and Caldari/Amarrian slave raiders same as anyone else.

[Natalcya Katla]

It does seem weird that chronicles and the new novel paint the SoE as painstakingly neutral and with a significant proportion that is hostile to eggers. Yet I have been missioning for them & they send me out to blow up pirates and Caldari/Amarrian slave raiders same as anyone else.

I've run missions for Gallente agents situated in Amarr space, and been given missions to intercept and destroy Amarrian fleets to prevent them from attacking their own planets.

Trying to make IC sense of missions is often impossible.

[Louella Dougans]

how do you feel about the bits of information occasionally presented in missions?

I find it interesting when i find a new bit, but at the same time, worry because a lot of these bits are only in those missions. What happens if a player never gets that mission? This is quite possible, as lvl1 and lvl2 seem to have more background bits in them than 3s and 4s, and people don't often do lvl1s and 2s once they have ships and skills for higher ones.