Print

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

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Hmm... Well, I guess I'll wait to see how the rest of the community leans.

[Esna Pitoojee]

The thing is, we're not randomly deciding "this gameplay shouldn't count, because we don't like it".

We're saying, "this gameplay massively violates the years of lore and in-character information (in some cases in-space interaction) we have had which clearly establishes that even smaller incursions by navy elements are treated as ~serious business~."

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but I don't think this is really about missions, even. I think what this comes down to is a division between people who prefer to say "everything I see in space is IC, regardless of what inconsistencies it may cause" and those who prefer to say "everything I see in space is IC, except if it violates pre-existing lore, in which case I prefer to ignore the inconsistent in-space activity to preserve the rationality of the universe."

And, that's not a division that is going to be resolved any time soon.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

The disparity between news reports and reality seems bigger then the supposed disparity between missions and reality to me, to be honest. Every time someone shoots off the old "Capsuleer fleets are catching up to the Empires!" line, everyone is always quick to jump at them and remind that they all have thirty bazillion titans or whatever lying under the sofa. But at the same time, a sighting of a couple battleships is a international security risk, and an incursion of 20 or so is an invasion?

It makes no sense. There's no way to reconcile the two ideas without radically warping your understanding of the game world to accommodate it.

As for the canonity of missions, I'll echo what everyone else says: While it's silly to say that hundreds of Capsuleers are literally foiling the exact same Gallente gate construction plot every day, and citing close specifics is kinda akin to being one of those people who talk about personally killing Arthas in WoW, I think it's equally silly to act like that whole part of the game just plain isn't canon. You can't just dismiss actual (written) content as completely nonexistent on every level simply because it's a bit contrived. If we did that, we'd be considering half the game nonexistant.

I think it's also kind of crappy to push this line on other players. I've seen people who don't really like to PvP much and do a lot of PvE to support their faction be brutally dismissed in character as being just ~crazy~ when they bring it up in public, and, without even taking it OOC, being simply told that the stuff the game they do just doesn't happen. That's not cool.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I'm another who always kinda assumed missions were something that happened once or twice, an example of the kind of missions that capsuleers are hired to preform...just...not 20 a day or so.

Maybe we should just retcon it that all the supposed fleets killed are just capsuleer over-exaggeration to earn more ISK on bounties, or simply drinking stories embellished over time.

"Oh yeah?!?  Well I shot down....20 Angel battleships....and a capital ship...a carrier!  Yeah...in low sec!  Thats it!"

This.

The missions do happen, just not with the sheer scale of frequency that the game-world demands.

A perfect example would be anomalies and other scannables in highsec. They happen with or without our intervention at a fairly predictable rate. Finish them all and the system will be empty for a good while. One should take the frequency (and scale) of those sites as a guide for how often and how big the "Mission Events" happen.

For example, in a 1.0 system, one would imagine only Level 1 sized missions would be happening IC and at a fairly infrequent rate. Scale upwards with decreasing security status.

[Katrina Oniseki]

The disparity between news reports and reality seems bigger then the supposed disparity between missions and reality to me, to be honest. Every time someone shoots off the old "Capsuleer fleets are catching up to the Empires!" line, everyone is always quick to jump at them and remind that they all have thirty bazillion titans or whatever lying under the sofa. But at the same time, a sighting of a couple battleships is a international security risk, and an incursion of 20 or so is an invasion?

It makes no sense. There's no way to reconcile the two ideas without radically warping your understanding of the game world to accommodate it.

As for the canonity of missions, I'll echo what everyone else says: While it's silly to say that hundreds of Capsuleers are literally foiling the exact same Gallente gate construction plot every day, and citing close specifics is kinda akin to being one of those people who talk about personally killing Arthas in WoW, I think it's equally silly to act like that whole part of the game just plain isn't canon. You can't just dismiss actual (written) content as completely nonexistent on every level simply because it's a bit contrived. If we did that, we'd be considering half the game nonexistant.

I think it's also kind of crappy to push this line on other players. I've seen people who don't really like to PvP much and do a lot of PvE to support their faction be brutally dismissed in character as being just ~crazy~ when they bring it up in public, and, without even taking it OOC, being simply told that the stuff the game they do just doesn't happen. That's not cool.

Very much this. Well said.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

The disparity between news reports and reality seems bigger then the supposed disparity between missions and reality to me, to be honest. Every time someone shoots off the old "Capsuleer fleets are catching up to the Empires!" line, everyone is always quick to jump at them and remind that they all have thirty bazillion titans or whatever lying under the sofa. But at the same time, a sighting of a couple battleships is a international security risk, and an incursion of 20 or so is an invasion?

It makes no sense. There's no way to reconcile the two ideas without radically warping your understanding of the game world to accommodate it.

Well, the way I look at it is that an incursion by a small part of, say, the US Pacific fleet into Cuban waters would be a big deal. The fact that the incursion was a single Aegis cruiser and a couple of destroyers in size in NO way detracts from the fact that the Pacific Fleet is ENORMOUS with multiple Carrier battlegroups.

As for the canonity of missions, I'll echo what everyone else says: While it's silly to say that hundreds of Capsuleers are literally foiling the exact same Gallente gate construction plot every day, and citing close specifics is kinda akin to being one of those people who talk about personally killing Arthas in WoW, I think it's equally silly to act like that whole part of the game just plain isn't canon. You can't just dismiss actual (written) content as completely nonexistent on every level simply because it's a bit contrived. If we did that, we'd be considering half the game nonexistant.

I think it's also kind of crappy to push this line on other players. I've seen people who don't really like to PvP much and do a lot of PvE to support their faction be brutally dismissed in character as being just ~crazy~ when they bring it up in public, and, without even taking it OOC, being simply told that the stuff the game they do just doesn't happen. That's not cool.

So, you say that you run missions for Agents on behalf of whatever organisations you mission for. You don't have to get into the exact nature of the missions or how many kills are involved. There's a reason why PvE kills don't get added to your combat log, you know.

I have actually spoken to Mission Runners who, IC, expect me to bow down before them because I only have a measly 1400 kills to point to on my combat record, whereas they kill upwards of a hundred battleship class vessels per day!

[John Revenent]

The quantity of NPC's destroyed is a little off scale, at least from what I have seen in past lore. However I suspect "off the grid" incursions would be a thing, missions do in a sense layout various lore for us players. As for IC interactions, the only thing of real use for quoting missions is your standing toward said corporation/faction.

I surely wouldn't be going around boasting about killing NPC vessels. Makes no sense.

Also who cares about people quoting kills ICly. It just enforces their inferiority complex and never justifies a response other then.. congrats you like being a psychopathic killer.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Adding two things real fast:

1, this isn't in any way meant to disparage PvEers or promote some kind of 'PVP only!' environment. I've seen plenty of story arcs run on the basis of PvP or not even any in-space activity at all; one of the best arcs I was in, a huge cross-faction project involving Amarr, Minmatar, and several other faction RPers, was actually based on the idea of a cross-border raid.

2, nobody is denying that cross-border intrusions happen. The Legion and Loki covert reconfiguration subsystem descriptions both acknowledge Amarr raids into the Republic, and the Leopard description acknowledges that the Republic is returning the favor. However, all also point to such raids being carried out by covert ops, rapid hit-and-run style operations, leaving only suspicions - not the in-the-open intrusions seen in missions.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Well, the way I look at it is that an incursion by a small part of, say, the US Pacific fleet into Cuban waters would be a big deal. The fact that the incursion was a single Aegis cruiser and a couple of destroyers in size in NO way detracts from the fact that the Pacific Fleet is ENORMOUS with multiple Carrier battlegroups.

This is space, though, where logistics and defense are much closer to equal with offense. In our world, even a single cruiser could cause a ton of damage on it's own at best and destroy the whole world at worst, but in EVE, anything larger then a proper full scale fleet would be torn to pieces by the presumably absolutely massive stationed fleets (like what happens to you if you try and go into a system with negative enough standings and attempt to accomplish anything other than run like hell), or shot out of the sky with planetary defense cannons. The two can't be likened to one another in severity.

I have actually spoken to Mission Runners who, IC, expect me to bow down before them because I only have a measly 1400 kills to point to on my combat record, whereas they kill upwards of a hundred battleship class vessels per day!

I think both extremes are bad. It's dumb to literally brag about numbers if you're a PvE player since they're obviously totally absurd (and just because that's obnoxious anyway), but at the same time, they are mostly fighting baseliner ships, which about the same as going after infantrymen in a tank. It makes sense for their raw figures to be a big higher then a PvP player - But that doesn't mean that's impressive. You can knock them down a peg without literally saying, "Nuh uh, nothing you've done is real!" like I've seen a few people do.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Kat is scolding me about my attitude as we speak. You (and he) are right, actually. I need to do a little better than putting my fingers in my ears.

I'm just a little unsure as to what the best policy is.

[Samira Kernher]

I'm just a little unsure as to what the best policy is.

If it was easy for us to know what the best policy was, then we wouldn't all be having this argument.

It's a complicated situation.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I am not scolding you, sheesh!

I just think creative thinking and a bit of cooperative problem-solving is a better response than abject rejection (or unquestioning acceptance) of something that doesn't initially make sense.

People keep saying "There's no way to reconcile the two ideas without radically warping your understanding of the game world to accommodate it.", and that's exactly what needs to be done. Together.

[Jace]

Maybe I missed it while scanning the thread, but whatever happened to the notion that of course missions occur - just ignore the specific names in the missions. The same is true in other games - no, you did not kill Captain Shitpaints IV, you killed [insert name here] of the hodunk clan. You can have just as meaningful PvE content that way, you can do it ICly with people that way, you just don't use lore names.

I see this work very well in many MMOs, including EVE. Why has this method suddenly been called into question? As for the sheer amount, it is a big cluster in an IP obsessed with death. I do not see the problem.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Kat is scolding me about my attitude as we speak. You (and he) are right, actually. I need to do a little better than putting my fingers in my ears.

I'm just a little unsure as to what the best policy is.

No matter how well thought out the world is (and Eves world is mostly certainly not the best thought out), roleplay is always based on 25% content, and 75% inference. You can never "work out" stuff like this completely. If someones percieved understanding about the game world obviously appears to differ from yours in a regard that comes up IC, the best thing to do is always discuss it OOCly with them, or just disengage quietly.

Not everything can be dealt with totally IC, and that's okay.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Again. It seems odd to have people literally shitting their pants about very modest scale incursions on one hand and ignoring that millions of capital ships (because fucking Battleships ought to be capital ships!) seem to get destroyed daily.