Loving this discussion, by the way. Thanks for starting it Kyber!
I fear that the more I get serious about PVP, the less I get serious about RP. I wonder if this is common elsewhere, and if some of the issues mentioned here stem from a similar root.
This might come somewhat from the amount of metagaming that goes into honing the PVP craft. When my enemy (friendemy in many cases) shares his fit with me in an OOC channel we both occupy, this is very much an OOC exchange, but I'd find it awfully hard not to use that knowledge when fighting them later, even if I consider every shot fired to be fired in character.
Watching livestreams, pvp videos, listening to podcasts, and trawling failheap/teamliquid/reddit for battle reports, AARs, intel, fits, and tactics discussion all feel very much like out of character behaviors, and have led to out of character "kinship" with people Altaen should despise. Altaen has also used so much OOC obtained information in the field, that it all kind of feels silly.
That said, on the subject of choosing to fight IC enemies over OOC enemies...my attempts at immersion kind of keep me from being able to differentiate them. If anything, the IC enemies seem sane, well-spoken and reasonable, and therefore less threatening than the batshit insane and clearly brain damaged/drug addled average podder.
The few roleplaying enemies I do encounter will always be treated in the exact same tactical consideration as the rest of the present hostiles. So if Shalee Lianne, Almity and 6 Agony Empire are plexing in Kamela, Altaen only really sees 8 war targets, and sets about dealing with them only based on the in-space situation.
I might be really confused as to what the hell the Agony dudes are on about when they scream "bAmarr victor," and refer to their CEO as Empress, but I am equally motivated to make their things explode as any other Amarr militia.
I really do wish there were more opportunities to deal with roleplaying "consequences" of victory or failure versus other roleplayers. I miss our old permawar with PIE, and their presence in the warzone in general. One of my favorite fights to date was when PIE brought a nice battleship gang to the Teon gate in Bosena, two jumps from RE-AW's main offices.
I am however completely against placing artificial or OOCly motivated restrictions on combat to make these sorts of conflicts more fair or sporting.
And I very much welcome the opportunity to be publicly shamed on IGS for losing to my fellow roleplayers. I would never deliberately avoid fighting roleplayers to prevent this from happening.
(Psssst. Don't tell anyone I told you this, but EM are all carebears and lolRPers, so you should war dec us for easy kills and killboard padding. Promise. Just think of the mocking you'll be able to do on IGS! It'll be GLORIOUS!)
