I read the first page of the thread when it was new, and it left me kind of conflicted whether I should reply or not. Considering the discussion in this page going already to erotic the Mittani fanfiction, I assume that the worst of RABBLERABBLERABBLE is already past.
So, we could divide the roleplaying in EVE to different levels. There's personal (or rather, character) level roleplaying. There's corporate roleplaying. Alliance roleplaying. In the case of Goonswarm, the question would be, how do powerblocks interacts with the NPC factions? In the CSM summit notes, Seleene mentioned that he wanted to take the Pure Blind station from Mordu's Legion Command, believing that the late MC (and now, Pandemic Legion) is a much more powerful entity than Mordu's. This might not be the exactly correct way, but they are powerful even if I believe that none does have the simple amount of raw resources even the pirate factions have, and are thus not anywhere near the big four.
Rather appropriately, I assume that one of the things discussed is rewards: the old arcs were at times seen as a way of distributing loot to your friends' player accounts. On the other hand, I seem to recall that ASCN once tried to work things out with the Angel Cartel, but when the rewards offered "were not good enough", they quit. The reward issue can be solved a few different ways. One thing is vanity rewards, items that aren't really that useful but have some kind of a rarity value (such as tournament medals). An alternative would be fame/infamy, a chance to enter the fiction.
To freely quote an answer given by Oveur to a Goon in an old fanfest, would the powerblocks be happy by being rewarded by a big dick? (The original question was about the "cost effectiveness" of titans. This question would be about the cost effectiveness of roleplaying arcs. Unlike titans, I find it unlikely that RP arcs could be mass produced to push them into a breaking point, since the limiting factor in roleplaying isn't ISK but time, and AFAIK you can't farm or scam more time for yourself.)
This matter is somewhat complicated, as CCP would probably be obliged to allow others to enter existing arcs. Therefore, there would not be a Goonswarm arc. There might be a Gurista/Angel arc with elements suitable for powerblocks. Assume Goons/CFC declare for Guristas. What if Black Legion / Venal residents declare for Guristas, too? And the NPC requests joint ops? Or Test/HBC/other frienemies declare for Serpentis (and thus, Angels) and you get to shoot a blue for the memory of Vile Rat?
