Print

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

[Kybernetes Moros]

It's a fair question to ask, although I wonder about the motivation for asking. How many people actually do wholly immersive RP? Would those people still play and contribute in more flourishy ways to EVE RP if they didn't do immersive RP?

My impression has always been that there's very little wholly immersive RP in EVE, so it doesn't move the "centre" of things much. It's possible that that's just because I see it through Evanda Char's position document for EM. As she expressed it, there were plenty of places in EVE for RP-lite, and very few alliances (possibly down to only one) for immersive RP, so protecting the immersive RP environment of EM did take priority over most other things.

The motivation would be that I'm not sure whether I feel the issue is there's too little immersion (and the RP that does happen gets cheapened for everyone socialising with everybody else) or too much (and this impression of needing to throw in which an existing group arises).

Historically, perhaps as a function of me first RPing, both in EVE and ever, with RE-AW, I've preferred immersive RP. My experience with Vaun has been that without sidling up to an established group, the RP he gets goes between "difficult to find" and "nonexistent", though, so perhaps now I'm questioning that.

Immersion-with-concessions-within-reason might be a decent summary of what I'm starting to feel, having watched RP corps without being actively involved: do the usual stuff, but if attacking an RP group is only a little out of the way, as opposed to the other end of the cluster, if they're a target the reasoning to go for them can be concocted. I don't know; it just seems slightly sad, from afar, that RP groups who are reasonably matched with every justification to attack each other don't. That might just be me being too little (or too much) of a purist, mind.

Y'know, my impression is that some of the closed circles have really interesting characters (and players) in them, and that there are often immersive reasons why they can't play together much.

Therein lies my issue. There exist interesting characters -- but because they're so insular, approaching them often ranges from difficult to impossible without extensive handwaving.

(Although this is interesting, if there's further interest in it it might be best split into another thread, since it seems to be going down a slightly different route to the OP.)

[Vieve]

Y'know, my impression is that some of the closed circles have really interesting characters (and players) in them, and that there are often immersive reasons why they can't play together much.

Therein lies my issue. There exist interesting characters -- but because they're so insular, approaching them often ranges from difficult to impossible without extensive handwaving.

Or secret alt making.  Speaking from the perspective of personal shenanigans, anyway.

[Saede Riordan]

Y'know, my impression is that some of the closed circles have really interesting characters (and players) in them, and that there are often immersive reasons why they can't play together much.

Therein lies my issue. There exist interesting characters -- but because they're so insular, approaching them often ranges from difficult to impossible without extensive handwaving.

Or secret alt making.  Speaking from the perspective of personal shenanigans, anyway.

Something tells me that having an alt in each camp is not the way to go about bridging connections.

Its all connected though. The desire for immersion, the RP camps, the nature of pvp in eve, its all knotted together and covered in bubblegum for good measure. But I do think there is a way to untangle it all and get things into a sort of more pure state.

I'm going to ask the older players this: Do you think the RP environment, both PvP wise and interaction wise, as improved or deteriorated, or stayed the same? If it has gotten worse, then what sort of things did people do before to spark conflicts and create fun and dynamic pvp environments?

[Ulphus]

Something I've been wondering recently is if wholly immersive RP is always the best approach. People have complained of "RP feeling like a lot of closed circles all muttering to each other, with a sea of public derp between them" in the past.

To be fair, sometimes real life feels like a lot of closed circles all muttering about each other, with a sea of public derp between them.

What is good about the immersive thing is that it feels like it's more true to life, and I value that a lot.

The problem is that in the real world, I have a few hundred thousand people living in my city that I can share different interests with, and if I don't talk to a lot of them because they have fundamentally different world views to me, that's not a big problem. Especially since a lot of people living in the same city will have very similar interests compared with say, someone living on the other side of the pacific from me.

In Eve, the community of RPers is quite a lot smaller, and if you rule out (for good and proper IC reasons) socialising with large chunks of it, then the number of people you have left to talk to can get quite small indeed.

[Khloe]

I'm going to ask the older players this: Do you think the RP environment, both PvP wise and interaction wise, as improved or deteriorated, or stayed the same? If it has gotten worse, then what sort of things did people do before to spark conflicts and create fun and dynamic pvp environments?

I'm no PVP hound, but having been invested in the game for most of its lifespan and watched the evolution of the RP community, that the interaction has changed considerably over time. I am hesitant to say whether the change has been better or worse, because I think some of the changes have been an improvement while others have been a detriment.

Early into EVE, early roleplayers were wide-eyed pioneers, creating character concepts, corporate goals, and project ideas that have been replicated many many times since. Every idea was fresh, every enemy and friend was a welcome opportunity/challenge, and there was a general trust level between players. It was also a relatively 'young' period for MMOs as well, and the community was small, so it was easy to stand out in a crowd. There was no faction warfare, but most of the RP-PVP corps fought for the same reasons; factional nationalist conflicts were common affairs. Pirate sub-factions tackling with trying to handle being a presence in mostly empire-based RP clans while simultaneously sticking to their roots in 0.0. Not much has changed with the pirate sub-factions, really, which I think is why they still remain creatively strong.

Eight years later, we have an established RP community here on backstage, with an established faction warfare mechanic for the RP-PVP corps to mingle. The number of players have skyrocketed ten to twentyfold from it used to be back when the game started and every character concept, every corporation, every idea has been repeated so many times ad nauseum that it's very difficult to truly stand out these days. All the really OOC nastiness is gone because there is no longer any implied trust between players; the behavior is largely accepted, and whether that is maturity or just low expectations is a matter for debate.  I think a lot of the creativity that existed prior to faction warfare has been lost; Famous RP-PVP corporations had to take big risks to keep their ranks full and maintain their notoriety/infamy/presence, but I don't see so much of the public display these days beyond individual character personalities.

But that's just my opinion.

[Gesakaarin]

I'm going to ask the older players this: Do you think the RP environment, both PvP wise and interaction wise, as improved or deteriorated, or stayed the same? If it has gotten worse, then what sort of things did people do before to spark conflicts and create fun and dynamic pvp environments?

I'd say prior to FW RP corps/alliances were the visible fronts of their chosen factions and organizations. Particular interests were well defined and there was more scope for creativity because there so much less information available and it was up to players to delve in and try and piece together what made their factions tick. This created a sense of involvement in what was being done because you weren't just handed things on a plate and it was engaging and created emotional and intellectual investment because in a sense it felt like you were also defending the products of your own particular thoughts and creativity against others. RP in many respects was much more a sandbox then, than it is today because even as the background fiction has become more defined it has also restricted the creative scope that a lot of RP groups thrived upon.

FW is perhaps an example of this. In many respects RP groups were something akin to the standard bearers of their factions, you did things not just for the killmails, the LP, or the ISK but because you were invested in the fiction and the world and did things like start wars and conflicts with each other due to well defined conflicts of interests that you and your group had created. FW in some ways removed that important aspect of RP-PVP and shifted creative control from the RP'ers into a pre-made and canned conflict that if it was a pure old school type of RP conflict would have created all sorts of interesting character interactions, conflicts and most importantly: stories to tell.

So it's a bit of a catch-22 now. If you're loyal to your faction there's pressure to get into FW and fight on behalf of it and at the same time CCP has practically dropped development on it and in particular the storyline and narrative of FW, that an entry into it provides very little real potential for actual RP interaction and storytelling that was previously what made RP-PVP so engaging to be involved in. That's the heart of the issue I think, players have a far higher cycle in moving their own fiction and interactions with each other when it comes to RP that CCP and FW lacks so it has a tendency to create a feeling that you're just spinning ships because all the effort and initiative a character and player may put into the conflict is relatively pointless all things considered.

There's ways around it of course and I think the solution comes in accepting that FacWar is an eternal stalemate and shift the focus of RP and player fiction from the core mechanics of it and instead build around FW in areas where there still exists some degree of scope and creative control of RP. Basically, learn to stop worrying and trying to win the war because you can't.

[lallara zhuul]

In the times of yore there was no RP PVP.

There was just immersion and the wars that it brought.

You immersed yourself into New Eden, based your decisions on what happened in New Eden (not in someones head/blog or self-narrated story on IGS) and it was as simple as that.

Emotes were very rare in channel RP, I believe it was because of the immersionist aspect of the roleplayers.
IC the channels were perceived as what they were, not as something that someone wished them to be, so that the baseline of interaction was exactly the same for everyone.

Yes, it was easier to single someone out, hurt them in space and make them shut up on IGS.
Yes, there was OOC camaraderie towards the enemy, not because you chatted with them OOC, it was because there was an underlying trust that even the enemy is a person on the other side of the trenches.
Most of the people of the Minmatar/Amarr conflict never talked to each other OOC but there was this underlying brotherhood of fighting the good fight.
One of the unspoken agreements was that all drama and underhandedness perceived by the enemy (which made you lose face) would be dealt with in house.

During that time the most vocal and numerous parts of the roleplaying community were taking part in the Minmatar/Amarr conflict.
So that meant that the RP community seemed to be working on that level of interaction all the time.
Newer roleplayers picked up their cues from the older ones and the ball kept rolling.

Then a lot of stuff happened, most of it is documented in Chatsubo, which broke that old 'circlejerk'.

RP community turned into cliques that insulated each other from each other in game and out of the game.

Now everything goes.

Most of the histrionics that happen in EVE nowadays sadly are silently approved of because of that fragmentation, mainly for the reason that if you raise your voice against a perceived wrong you get swarmed by those who perceive themselves as someone that has something to lose if any kind of homogenization or baseline rules are introduced into the community.

[Lyn Farel]

I'm going to ask the older players this: Do you think the RP environment, both PvP wise and interaction wise, as improved or deteriorated, or stayed the same? If it has gotten worse, then what sort of things did people do before to spark conflicts and create fun and dynamic pvp environments?

Stagnated I would say, but I can echo Gyra's comments on the matter.

It is also hard to compare both periods for me since the first half of my life on eve (2006 - 2009) has been mostly driven by the gameplay itself and the RP came in as the thing that made me carry on and prevented me to get bored.

The second half is where things start to change : when you already have played 3 years to a game (which is quite a lot) no matter what happens, you might start to be a little less enthusiast about the game, the gameplay, the mechanics, and you start to delve deeper into the lore and your RP to compensate. That second half of my presence on eve lasted 95% due to RP, nothing else. Ofc I still enjoyed pvp and fortunately I got FW to find a good and enjoyable disposable pvp, but that was very secondary.

What Lallara call immersionnist, I define it myself as "RP light". That's a different of taste and appreciation, really. Unfortunately my immersionnism or EM's immersionnism does not help at all to fix the RP cliques issue. That's why I wanted so much to see the NEA channel be used again as a public summit between RP leaders.

[Ava Starfire]

Its pretty well known I run an RP/PVP corp, and it seems a lot of people are reluctant to join for that reason. When people do, theyre reluctant to risk ships or go out and roam. I have no idea where this mindset comes from; fly cheap, have fun? If you play any other PvP game, you run back into the fight and try again. EVE should be no different. So you lost a fight that has IC repercussions? Cool! Your character is not perfect, congratulations! I have had way more fun playing Ava when she loses, and must accept her loss, than when she wins. Ava has never won an IC "RP fight" (Quick edit; she did win one once, with a lucky pop to the nose in a "first blood" honor duel). She hasnt won every in space fight. Both make her appeal to me more, make her feel more real.

Its just pixels, and most BC and down pixels are pretty damn cheap. I dont understand the aversion.

[Jev North]

I understand some roleplayers are squeamish about squandering a few of those "crew" animated slugs of carbohydrates and water. Pah!

Actually, that's sort of legitimate; part of the fun of RP is pretending it's more than pixels.

On the third hand, that's truth, right up there. Try PvP; you have nothing to lose but your ship. And your pod. And your reputation.. although, what good is a reputation when it's not grown on a good, hard diet of space-murder?

[ArtOfLight]

Malcolm lost nothing short of fifty frigates in a matter of two weeks because of fights with Anshar and the Gallente, half of which were based on some level of RP.

Azdan has lost a couple of ships to RP situations.

[Gottii]

Its pretty well known I run an RP/PVP corp, and it seems a lot of people are reluctant to join for that reason. When people do, theyre reluctant to risk ships or go out and roam. I have no idea where this mindset comes from; fly cheap, have fun? If you play any other PvP game, you run back into the fight and try again. EVE should be no different. So you lost a fight that has IC repercussions? Cool! Your character is not perfect, congratulations! I have had way more fun playing Ava when she loses, and must accept her loss, than when she wins. Ava has never won an IC "RP fight" (Quick edit; she did win one once, with a lucky pop to the nose in a "first blood" honor duel). She hasnt won every in space fight. Both make her appeal to me more, make her feel more real.

Its just pixels, and most BC and down pixels are pretty damn cheap. I dont understand the aversion.

  this post

[Merdaneth]

Hmmmm.... think Lallara is making a good point.

I think there are more RP-ers in EVE than there were in the past, but they've become isolated. There is no common base or common ground from which to operate.

I believe that unless RP-ers make an (OOC) effort to seek each other out, then they will just drift each other mostly. Merdaneth honestly couldn't care less about what EM (for example) is doing mostly because I don't notice them. They probably don't notice me too. Or if they notice me, they likely notice stuff doesn't have much of an impact on them and therefore doesn't require any further interaction.

Same for allies. Once I'm in Providence, I don't really notice what PIE's doing, they don't notice what I'm doing, and neither has much impact on the play of the other. That's just factual. EVE is a big place, so big that unless you actively seek each other out, you likely won't impact each other much.

Being immersionist gives lots of reasons to avoid many other RPers and a lot fewer reasons to seek them out, so it certainly doesn't help in that regard.

Honestly, I think the growth of EVE is the biggest issue here. We had more of a village mentality before, it was nearly impossible not to notice one another. Now we are living in the RP equivalent of a big city and in relative anonimity. If we want to meet up and play together, we just can't keep doing or own thing.

[Lyn Farel]

Its pretty well known I run an RP/PVP corp, and it seems a lot of people are reluctant to join for that reason. When people do, theyre reluctant to risk ships or go out and roam. I have no idea where this mindset comes from; fly cheap, have fun? If you play any other PvP game, you run back into the fight and try again. EVE should be no different. So you lost a fight that has IC repercussions? Cool! Your character is not perfect, congratulations! I have had way more fun playing Ava when she loses, and must accept her loss, than when she wins. Ava has never won an IC "RP fight" (Quick edit; she did win one once, with a lucky pop to the nose in a "first blood" honor duel). She hasnt won every in space fight. Both make her appeal to me more, make her feel more real.

Its just pixels, and most BC and down pixels are pretty damn cheap. I dont understand the aversion.

It still costs money. Not that I have always been reluctant to engage any kind of ship in a fight (except maybe shinies ofc, but I even fielded the dread several times so...). But it costs money, be it a T1 frigate or a T2 cruiser. One costs more than the other, a lot more, yes. But both cost money.

And money = time spent in boring farming most of the time, since eve is more or less a second job when it comes to these issues. Maybe one of the things I agreed on with Ank before she got expelled from the CSM. The fact that you can spend 30min, or even days, to earn the necessary money, then to see your ship disappear in glorious flames 5 min after the undock because you got into a gatecamp or anything... can be quite frustrating.

So no, even if some ships are quite affordable, they still ask for you to farm them, which is not quite like in other MMOs when you can go back into pvp freely without any material loss. Ofc, what you find in other MMOs removes the material consequences that make eve great in its way. Pros ans cons...


Note : I am not speaking about T1 fitted ships. They cost nothing, but they are under efficient or just loleffective in pvp. These days you need most of the time rigs, faction ammo, and T2 (and sometimes even a few complex mods) to remain competitive, especially in solo. And I am not even speaking about the price of clones and implants when you start to get clones at 30-50M isk each.

[Ava Starfire]

I make ok isk simply from PvPing, but yes, farming is boring.

This does not explain some who are super rich being reluctant to "just do it" though. Hell, a T1 frig with a solid T2 fit costs 7-8m isk. You can make this in 5 minutes ratting in nullsec, and an average mission will buy you 2 or 3 of them. A single hour of FW plexing? 20 or 30.

So no, the "I have to farm forever!" thing is part of it, but far from all.