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[Los Muertas]

I think the biggest issue is not that people dont want to do it, but rather, they dont want to do it wrong. There are threads on IGS that try to look like serious news, the problem is that there are so many conflicting strains of lore, points of view and so on that no matter what you write, youll "get it wrong". For example if in TNN I was to write a story about the economic strain of the GOON issue on the Republic Economy I would get two of you guys saying that I need to do more research, another guy saying that the way I described the Republic economy in general wasnt accurate (because of course there is an in game version of Forbes somewhere...?), and a GOON saying "you know nothing of our work".

Now lets say I could get this all right, in a way everyone could agree on, how do I make that intresting and RP friendly anyway. After all we do the IGS for entertainment. This is the biggest problem when trying to write about "real world" events in game...when you write them in detail...they are boring to talk about. So and so war decs such and such because x is aligned with B and B needs the moon that C is harvesting to maintain this or that. But if you write "an insidious power play by So and So against C, once close friends but now bitter foes" it sounds so much better even though it most likely takes a "War and Peace" epic into an episode of GI-Joe.

I guess my point is if you are going to write about it, lore and cannon need to take a little bit of a back seat to make it entertaining.

[Matariki Rain]

Now lets say I could get this all right, in a way everyone could agree on, how do I make that intresting and RP friendly anyway. After all we do the IGS for entertainment. This is the biggest problem when trying to write about "real world" events in game...when you write them in detail...they are boring to talk about. So and so war decs such and such because x is aligned with B and B needs the moon that C is harvesting to maintain this or that. But if you write "an insidious power play by So and So against C, once close friends but now bitter foes" it sounds so much better even though it most likely takes a "War and Peace" epic into an episode of GI-Joe.

Making the point, once again, that some of us roleplayers want different things. That report about nullsec alignments and resources (and spats between FCs) leading to war-fighting is what I want to read.

For a while that type of factual reporting about nullsec politics was provided inside EM by one of our members who'd condense the range of EVE political bloggage and discussion into forum posts about what was going on and likely effects on us. Was good. Was also a lot of work, and eventually said pilot understandably decided to allocate time elsewhere. But that's real, and it explains real things like why PL first turned up in our back yard, or who was road-tripping in the Isto pocket at any given time. When roleplayers ignore what's going on in the space around them because it's somehow not roleplay-worthy I just shake my head.

I don't need--and, personally, don't want--an IGS that's a blend of tabloid newspapers and the more emo parts of Livejournal. (Exception: Muck Raker's blend of parody and Daily-Show-style actual news reportage amuses me.) Clearly, most of the people using the IGS do want that, so I leave them to it. That doesn't mean it's the way it has to be done.

[Lyn Farel]

I just want the old news, we had a little of everything, from nullsec issues (that I did not give a shit considering how dull and anti immersive it was compared to news from the universe, if you pardon me for the language, even when I was in Providence), to tabloids, and most generally, news about the universe itself. Nullsec news could be a little less boring and more attractive to RPers imho if they focused a little on the effects they have on our little words and lives. Most RPers do not care at all if X now controls O-SHIT in the L-MAO constellation, but they care a lot more when it starts to affect the prices of minerals, or when they have to face a goon embargo.

I think the biggest issue is not that people dont want to do it, but rather, they dont want to do it wrong. There are threads on IGS that try to look like serious news, the problem is that there are so many conflicting strains of lore, points of view and so on that no matter what you write, youll "get it wrong". For example if in TNN I was to write a story about the economic strain of the GOON issue on the Republic Economy I would get two of you guys saying that I need to do more research, another guy saying that the way I described the Republic economy in general wasnt accurate (because of course there is an in game version of Forbes somewhere...?), and a GOON saying "you know nothing of our work".

I do not see why people continue to tell that the lore is full of conflicting bits and incoherences. I am sure there are some, but I can't even recall anyone of them myself... What I see, though, is a lot of inaccuracies and vague things. Things that are either briefly described, or stuff that should get the wiki warning "STUB", and we often would like to know more details. Yes, we do not know exactly how a lot of things are conducted, but that is at least something I like with their new dedication to the eve wiki, we get articles like the one on slavery or the state economics, and we can't complain anymore that we know nothing about these subjects.

Anyway, you will always have people that will tell you that you do it wrong. We all have different interpretation of the lore, even if we tend to harmonize/accomodate ourselves especially through initiatives like backstage. To my mind it is not a real issue when you deal with IC things. I have not seen a single piece of news that was not criticized either for its bias, either for inaccuracies. Somehow, they are here for that. A lot of people consider them like RP raw matter to be exploited, and it is good. So yes, ICly, you will always find people to spit on your work, and others to agree with it. Maybe your news were a little too much focused on conspiracies (Karsoth, Seylin events, etc) ? I couldnt tell. Remember Muck Raker, especially at the beginning, and how gutter press was despised by almost everyone ICly and described as trash news. Well, it still is, but people have accomodated themselves to find it entertaining a lot and have drastically changed their views on it ICly.

Now then, the real issue is often on the OOC side. Since Eve is a lot about politics and economics, stuff that is already sensible IRL, when it comes to deal with that people do it naturally ICly, but it often also reflects their own OOC views. And their OOC interpretation of the lore. I had an issue recently centered around that and I couldnt find a way to work around it since it was basically a clash of OOC understanding of the PF, so I just decided to withdraw completely. These are the real issues to me, so continue to focus on the IC side of things.

[Makkal]

I just had an odd disconnect between role-play and real-play in the Summit.

I quit a corporation earlier today after receiving a mail from the CEO that basically said, 'I'm playing Diablo III now. Leave if you want because I am probably going to let this account laps." That means Makkal ended up in the Ministry of War. The problem being that Makkal would saw her arm off before joining that organization.

As chance would have it, another Summit member commented on it, which led to the following exchange.

He: It says here you have no corporation aside from the Ministry of War.
She: Must be an error. My only 'corporation' is the Hanaya Clan. I was born there and will likely die there.
He: You're in the Ministry of War. Check your database.
She: There's no need to check my database. I'm of the Kingdom, why would I join the Empire's Ministry of War?
He: No, you're wrong.
She: No u!
He: No u!

... working from memory here. Might have been slightly different.


I try very hard to have what I do in EVE have some connection to what Makkal is doing. I mostly run courier contracts, so I have Makkal telling people she deals with shipping and distribution for her clan. I got podded the other day, so Makkal complained about it in the Summit, and Kat swooped in with advice to help Makkal, that helped me a great deal. Because Makkal would see this as a type of service, I sent Kat some ISK afterwards. 

Tonight, I had some great RP with Turinuk (the dude who's always crawling into Sleeper wormholes) when Makkal bought a Zephyr, scanned down cosmic signatures, they went into a wormhole, and poked around a bit. He then gave Makkal a 'training program.' For me, it was a great tutorial. For Makkal, it was a great experience. 

[Matariki Rain]

That means Makkal ended up in the Ministry of War. The problem being that Makkal would saw her arm off before joining that organization.

Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".

Part of the "what happens really happens" approach is that data like that is true. It might not mean you're actively involved with the Ministry of War, but you're currently on the books as their responsibility. If you don't want that, I'd suggest either finding a new corp or creating your own corp with a more appropriate, Kingdom-oriented name.

[Vieve]

Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".

Gallente have it so much easier when it comes to that.  It's simple enough to say "The Scope granted me temporary press credentials."

[Makkal]

Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".

'The usual approach' isn't really relevant to my story. Though I agree, that's something I could have said. However...

1) Why did CONCORD just now allocate Makkal to the Ministry of War? Why not do it immediately after she graduated from the RAI?

2) Makkal probably would not talk about joining a new corp. She's a member of the Hanaya Clan. She's talked extensively about her work for them. She's never mentioned the corporation I was in previously and it's unlikely she'd have ever joined it.

"It's a database error" works just as well. It's not like the person Makkal was speaking with had ever met her in person or seen her with members of my corporation. Nor has she ever talked about that corporation.

Part of the "what happens really happens" approach is that data like that is true.

Right. And I'm explicitly rejecting that approach. Hence my posting it as an example of real-play vs role-play.

 

[Halete]

Snip.

You'd ought to make a one-man corp unless you're insistent on Corping != in-character.

If that's the case then 'data-base error' would indeed be your best bet, but as far as I've known, even people who don't play in RP corps acknowledge their corporation (Tarunik is a prime example of this).

[Mizhara]

The problem with rejecting the facts and reality of the game in favor of pulling things wholecloth out of your arse is that you can't back it up at all while anyone just using in-game resources can back up their claims quite easily. This will inevitably lead to conflict and I'm afraid you're the guy who's claiming things that are on par with the easter bunny, god and the spaghetti monster as far as believable things go. The guys pointing at what the game is saying are, without question, pointing out unassailable truth.

That's why the safest method of playing is to simply acknowledge the game reality of things and incorporate it into the RP. It's really not that hard either. RPers in Eve create all kinds of numbskull excuses for convenience sake and the skillset is quite transferable. Hell, you can even pull the vagueness card as well. "Yeah, I know what it says. Let's just say there's... backroom deals going on." That sentence alone will damn near justify Matari Freedom Fighters enrolling in the 24th Crusade.

It really isn't that hard to retain character while acknowledging game mechanics and when you erect your giant imaginary fiction castle around your character it will pay to take said game-mechanics into account.

[Makkal]

You'd ought to make a one-man corp unless you're insistent on Corping != in-character.

This is what I was thinking about doing. It's still up in the air how I will play it.

The problem with rejecting the facts and reality of the game in favor of pulling things wholecloth out of your arse is that you can't back it up at all while anyone just using in-game resources can back up their claims quite easily.

They can back up their claims by saying what they're seeing in the database. Makkal can back up her claims by pointing out logical inconsistencies (a Kingdom citizen in an Empire corp) by pointing out that she's talked about working for Hanaya clan for some time, and suggesting there's an error.

If the other character decides she's lying for some reason, that's fine.

This will inevitably lead to conflict...

No, it's not inevitable. In fact, it's rather odd that the only time someone's mentioned the corporation I'm in is the day that I'm put in the Ministry of War. The chances of that are rather slim. It's a bit like Makkal saying "I'm in the Khind Kingdom right now speaking with my father" and someone going, "No you're not; I just saw you zip by me in your Magnate. Why are you in Odatrik and why are you lying to me?"

That's why the safest method of playing is to simply acknowledge the game reality of things and incorporate it into the RP. It's really not that hard either.

You'll notice I gave a few examples of my doing just that. Sometimes it's 'not that hard' and sometimes it's more difficult.

[Jade Constantine]

I am under the impression that role-play in EVE and what actually happens 'in-space' is growing further apart. Judging from the Intergalactic Summit forum, but also the IC channels, role-players seem to play and exist largely in their own little RP-bubble. A bubble were important galaxy-spanning events like the Goonswarm LP scam, Hulkageddon or even the Goonswarm-Star Fraction mutual ally war-dec don't exist or are simply ignored and hardly mentioned in-character.

I'm guessing people find it a bit immersion-breaking to some degree to refer to how relatively powerful and influential one particular player block has gotten. I mean, its tricky - it doesn't help that Goonswarm is so profoundly anti-roleplay by its nature - and that anyone attempting to bring this stuff up publicly in an roleplay manner will inevitably be OOC demeaned and trolled etc. That kind of thing does get old and many roleplayers seem not to like that kind of argument.

I tried to post as meaningfully as I could in your FW scam post Merdaneth, but it is pretty hard work putting all CCP's collective bad decisions through an RP lens sometimes. Then we ended up having to sideways consider the confiscation of the illicit gains part of cannon as well - which in RP turns still allows Goons to screw over the Republic into near bankruptcy then get magically saved again by Concord.
 
Similar thing with our mutual wardec scheme against Goons really - we did everything by the number according to the Inferno 1.0 devblogs and laid the groundwork for a plan to draw the largest alliance in the game into a truly vast network of hisec defensive allies that they could not escape from then ... well, next week CCP changed the rules and turned the whole system on its head. Even I'm not sure of the value of making an RP post out of that because its ultimately going to sound like "CCP/CONCORD caved to Goons" (again) and will just attract the goon trolls to come and mess up IGS.

I guess my point is yes, these are galaxy spanning significant events to Eve the OOC metagame etc. But they don't have much actual credibility to the cannon background. And that probably reflect a change in focus from CCP itself last couple of years, where they have stopped really loving and promoting the Eve storyline of space empires and technological development and started praising metagaming and pure OOC shenanigans.

How can people talk about their hairstyles, the latest relationships and not mention such things at all unless they consciously choose to not make such events part of their RP. Does it mean that such events simply don't exist within their RP-bubble? Are they discarded as to 'gamist' and therefore having no place in their RP world?

Well I don't think people ignore them. Certainly in TLF chat when the FW scam debate was raging it was mostly "So Goons helped us win FW then? / :shrug: its a storm in a teacup CCP will take all the LP back and we'll still have our tier 5 purchased fleet stabbers." How to turn that into appropriate RP rationale - I dunno, "nullsec confidence tricksters used the Amarr and Matari militias as patsies while destroying billions of their own assets to be awarded trillions of Loyalty points to fix galactic markets and gain access to the republican assembly plants - hundreds of TLF fighters randomly benefit from the con by cashing out their own stocks at tier 5, concord then confiscated all the illicit LPs."

Is that better than simply ignoring it - probably - but it is a bit of a jarring impact to the sensibilities of those loyalists who have ever claimed their empires could not be threatened by capsuleer alliances. (and to make matters worse, its concord that has to play the magic reset switch and undo the damage further portraying Amarr and Minmatar states as pretty pathetic patsies in the whole thing.)

Goons vs SF war is similar really - in character it would be "Goonswarm leans on Concord to price large scale defensive alliances out of viability following upsets in hisec wars. Star Fraction to be charged ten trillion ISK to continue the war with their current roster of allies (every two weeks!)."

I mean, you can't really put this kind of thing on paper without it sounding like one long allegation of developer corruption rather than actual roleplay material. Its pretty dodgy stuff.

And of course, that does really partially explain why CCP themselves have stopped RP'ing game decisions in the news. This kind of thing is proving extremely difficult to introduce to the IC reality of New Eden. Years ago CCP did produce RP news articles to cover important events and game changes - so perhaps we could ask what really changed?

I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.

Well I read your email on the subject Merdaneth but IC on that one I'm afraid Merdaneth (the character) probably made his bed years ago as far as Jade is concerned. Yes from a certain angle its corrupt as all hell, especially from the Amarrian side - but then you have to remember as an anarchist opposed to all governments Jade is hardly going to dislike seeing imperialist memetics corroded by personal interest and loyalty given to comrades in space rather than politicians back on the homeworld. Of course if this kind of corruption led to an Amarrian conquest of the warzone you'd see Jade pretty pointed in her criticisms but then its fortunate most slave populations only need to be liberated once. (ie once RAA flipped Minmatar for the first time we'd expect to have gotten the population out from under the yoke and back to free space). Still if it makes you feel any better, rest assured the people Jade flies with in the Minmatar Militia do want to conquer the whole of the warzone and reduce Amarr to zero systems (and then invade providence again). I think that's a pretty honest ambition.

Still, I do agree its something you can get your teeth into Merdaneth - actual loyalist Amarrians running Minmatar alts to farm LPs probably would be seen pretty as pretty dodgy practice by the theology council - though I'd guess they'd justify it as guerrilla economics to fund their continued war.

If this was something we ever needed to do the other way around "running amarr alts for LP income" it would be fairly easy to call it sponsoring corruption in the 24th Crusade with double agents and infiltrators to draw income from the other side.

Perhaps the real issue here is that the FW engine has become something profoundly corrupt in comparison to the way old school loyalists used to run their wars and conduct their roleplay?

But that maybe reflects also the degree to which IC roleplay as a whole is no longer particularly valued by CCP?

[Lyn Farel]

Well Makkal, if that discussion really happened like that in the Summit, it seems obviously to me that this guy was just trying to piss in your cheerios for the sake of it. Typical of players that have OOC issues with someone when they might disagree on the RP of someone else and cowardly hide behind IC snide remarks. If the guy really has an issue with you OOCly as it is obviously the case, he should begin to open an OOC private convo with you to discuss about that. What a douche, really.

I can understand that some people may have some concerns about players pretending to be rogue drones, sleeper agents, enheduanni, and that kind of stuff. Some will argue that they do not find it abhorent, and others will definitly not want to see that breaking their own immersion. Fine, I can understand that someone will tell to a player playing a rogue drone entity that he does consider him as a demented capsuleer or just that he is going to ignore him.

I can also understand, as you said, that someone may not believe your character if he sees that he is registered in the ministry of war, considering that the chances for the database to be wrong are thin as oppose to the probability for it to be corrupted. ICly, your words against his words, nothing more, as long as he does not become a dick about it that barely has anything to do with IC. To y opinion, your case is not a real issue as a lot of options and excuses can be found. You maybe choosed the hardest to defend ICly, but I do not see a particular issue with it.

Now consider my own case and also the case of a few other people that play bloodlines that are not in the CONCORD capsuleer database. It is already annoying to deal with that sometimes, but we ultimately choosed it consciously and have to deal with it. But, sometimes we come to the same moronic arguments where people start to come OOCly at you and begin to tell you how you are a brutor and not an ammatar, period. Well, my usual response to that kind of fanatics of "everything that does not happen ingame or is not written ingame, does not exist" is the same, always : firstly, the truth of anything written RL or in any universe is relative and subjective, and is subject to errors/discrepancies, and secondly, I do not see a single reason for an ammatar/mannar/ealur/udorian/thukker/krusual/starkmanir to be somehow incapable of becoming a capsuleer either.

[Halete]

Is that better than simply ignoring it - probably - but it is a bit of a jarring impact to the sensibilities of those loyalists who have ever claimed their empires could not be threatened by capsuleer alliances. (and to make matters worse, its concord that has to play the magic reset switch and undo the damage further portraying Amarr and Minmatar states as pretty pathetic patsies in the whole thing.)

Read the whole post but this stuck out.

We can't get nice things because it'd upset people in their bubbles?

All my fears confirmed.

[Milo Caman]

We can't get nice things because it'd upset people in their bubbles?

I maintain that upsetting people in their bubbles/bursting them is one of the most enjoyable things you can do in EVE.

[Alain Colcer]

Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".

Gallente have it so much easier when it comes to that.  It's simple enough to say "The Scope granted me temporary press credentials."

odd i always thought i became a temporary employee of Scope to go "check on things", not really like a reporter, just someone who went visiting the locations the scope wanted to check out at first glance....not sure what would the title of that be.