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[Mizhara]

Of course people have, just like people haven't been Amarr enough or Caldari enough. If that is your only niggle, you need to re-evaluate things. Now, like I asked, do you have anything but four year old logs to support your claim that there are people who "actively attack Matari characters who try to focus on other things."?

[Samira Kernher]

The only character I can think of who was making that argument lately was Nameira, who had basically posted that if you were a Minmatar capsuleer and not fighting for the Republic in the militia then you were useless and your lack of contribution would be remembered when the war was over.

Ironically she left militia herself and became a pirate after that.

[Samira Kernher]

As an RPer, social interaction is important to me in a MMORPG like Eve. Am I setting myself up for yet another spell of solitude, or does this approach have any merit?

I don't know, but as someone that plays one of those type of religiously-Amarr former slaves, I'd be interested in interacting with that kind of character. Perhaps as said missionary or just as an advisor.

[Laerise [PIE]]

Shouldn't you instead be helping the reclaiming effort Samira! *cracks whip* 

See, not only the mini side has people who make sure others are productive service members as well!

[Samira Kernher]

That is part of the Reclaiming effort!

[Gottii]

Keep in mind y'all, I'm not saying that the slavery issue for the Minis is tedious because it turns your character into a frothing fanatic, because, frankly, if you play a lot characters in any kind of believable manner, it freaking should.  It literally because the axis of many Matari characters whether you want it or not.

Take Gottii for instance.  Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and background choices determined attributes, I picked "slave child" cus Per and Will for PVP training yo.  So, when I decided to play the toon as an RP character, he had the fact that his immediate family was still in the Empire.  This isnt like an RP choice, this was the freaking flavor text of the actual character sheet.  He was a priori gonna have to play this as a main focus of his character.  I mean, unless he's completely shed his family and humanity in an Istvaan-esque kind of post-human infomorphic transformation, the fact that his birth mother, father, and siblings are still enslaved in the Empire should freak him out and piss him off.   I suppose I could have ignored it, but literally the game and the world background all lend itself to that being a huge concern.

Its not that its a bad RP angle so much as its an overwhelmingly immediate one for a lot of PCs and one you really cant address or resolve as a player. 

 

[Samira Kernher]

Your blog writings on that were some of my biggest inspirations when I started, Gottii. <3

I also don't think the slavery issue is a bad issue. It's a conflict creator, and those are necessary for creating RP. I think the big issue is, as Miz has said, that a lot of Minmatar RPers either completely ignore it, or say they care about it while not engaging it at all with their actual in-game actions and RP. Minmatar RP does have a big issue with splitting as I've noticed. Lip service, rather. That makes it hard to get a real community going as people aren't really coming together. There's common sentiments, but not common goals, or joint activities.

And I'm aware I'm part of the problem here, since I play an Amarrian Minmatar, though when I created Sami I was hoping to be able to be a conflict generator for both Amarr and Minmatar RPers. I'd like to think that having Amarr-loyal Minmatar eliminates some of the tediousness of it by adding more varied nuances to the issue than just 'True Amarr Slavers on one side and Minmatar Rebel Slaves on the other'.

[Mizhara]

It is indeed not a bad issue. Like you say, it's a conflict generator. The problems only come when people won't deal realistically with the character relations that leads to, as in actual conflict between characters on different sides of the issue. OOC they want to add as many Friends to their Spacebook as they can and thus IC have a seizure and decides to ignore the conflict generators when it becomes inconvenient enough that characters would become opposed to each other.

The factions with sufficient numbers to have enough Spacebook Friends internally can afford to acknowledge the conflict generators and thus have realistic problems with the other factions' members, while MinFac does not. Thus, "Yeah! I'm totally a Minnie! How dare you question if I fly for the Empire? I'm still totes Tribal loyal. Yup." and get incredibly upset when people point out the rather obvious gulf between words and actions.

[Gottii]

(Ninjad by Miz, this was in response to Sami)

Thank you for the kind words <3.  Im glad you enjoyed reading that blog. 

And, yes, you're absolutely right that a pro-Amarrian Minmatar could be a fun character, and has a lot to say about the EVE universe.  (also, props to PIE, love them as an RP organization <3)

But it also highlights one of the problems of RP vs. Building a Community, especially a tribal community.  "RP", at least as a lot of RPers define it, define RP basically in the same as drama and storytelling.  Conflict, "the heroes journey" and all of that.  And thats great, and it makes for good stories and compelling stories and unique viewpoints. 

But that's also the problem when you try to create a community of characters.  Communities are not furthered by conflict, but by consensus.  Furthered not by a bunch of unique viewpoints, but ones all roughly the same deeply held beliefs.  The Matari even more so seem to need that, with their emphasis are traditional and corporate identity.  Right now being "Minmatar" means so much that its kinda watered down.  It can mean anything.  Same problem with the Federation I think.  The Caldari and Amarrian characters are much more constrained by "this is what it means to be x", which makes for easier ways to build communities, and frankly easier to tell good stories.  Constraints breed creativity.

Though Im obviously a bit biased, I think its fair to say that EM was the standard bearer for Matari RP for awhile, and I think its general success in creating a Matari alliance and culture was its particular brand of RP.  For EM, it wasnt interested in RP conflict and dramatics so much as immersing oneself in the game world and in the character.  In many ways, we tried sought RP through harmony and shared vision than a bunch of conflicting and unique viewpoints.  Even mining was an RP event, literally.  A lot of them tried to a day in the life of a group rather than a conflict created by divergent views and dogmas.  (now, did this happen in practice all the time, or even most the time?  of course not, the Brutor Drama Club was a thing for a reason.)

This is in no way critiquing anyones character.  Its just an observation from what I've seen.  Its human nature as roleplayers that everyone wants to play a unique and/or outsiders view, but for a community to take hold, you need constraints and conformity and consensus.  Right now in Matari RP there seems to be lots of outsiders and no insiders.

[Mizhara]

Gotta be a unique and special snowflake.

The problem I had with EM was that while it had the day to day feel of people just living their lives, it was far too insular and didn't actually do much in space. In my time with EM, at any rate. A few fights occasionally with some pirates, but next to zero interaction with anything but itself. Even raising the topic of going to kick some Amarrians in the teeth pretty much got dogpiled. That's exceedingly unhealthy for any RP community.

There needs to be presence not just in an alliance/corp, but in space. Something achieved, or at least attempted versus other roleplaying factions. This requires numbers and a certain amount of unity within a faction. This is not achievable with nine out of ten characters being the "outsiders", nor is it doable when nine out of ten "insiders" preach peace and sitting still in Republic highsec.

[Samira Kernher]

Right. You need a balance of both creating a community and conflict with other communities. Too much in either direction isn't healthy for RP.

[Mizhara]

And we're back to the simple basis of it. We just don't have the numbers for either, because nine out of ten just fucks off to anywhere else while still claiming to be MinFac.

[Lyn Farel]

Keep in mind y'all, I'm not saying that the slavery issue for the Minis is tedious because it turns your character into a frothing fanatic, because, frankly, if you play a lot characters in any kind of believable manner, it freaking should.  It literally because the axis of many Matari characters whether you want it or not.

Take Gottii for instance.  Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and background choices determined attributes, I picked "slave child" cus Per and Will for PVP training yo.  So, when I decided to play the toon as an RP character, he had the fact that his immediate family was still in the Empire.  This isnt like an RP choice, this was the freaking flavor text of the actual character sheet.  He was a priori gonna have to play this as a main focus of his character.  I mean, unless he's completely shed his family and humanity in an Istvaan-esque kind of post-human infomorphic transformation, the fact that his birth mother, father, and siblings are still enslaved in the Empire should freak him out and piss him off.   I suppose I could have ignored it, but literally the game and the world background all lend itself to that being a huge concern.

Its not that its a bad RP angle so much as its an overwhelmingly immediate one for a lot of PCs and one you really cant address or resolve as a player. 

 

I don't think players necessarily have to stick to their game racial ancestry in my opinion...

Especially for people that started long enough ago that they had like you to pick up what was the most efficient ingame, often without even knowing what they were going to RP in the first place. You also have all the players that came into RP later.

I can understand the need to tell them to deal with it (I suppose that's one way of seeing it), but myself, I cannot tell them to trash a character due to prior game choices that they are unhappy with.

Right now being "Minmatar" means so much that its kinda watered down.  It can mean anything.  Same problem with the Federation I think.  The Caldari and Amarrian characters are much more constrained by "this is what it means to be x", which makes for easier ways to build communities, and frankly easier to tell good stories.  Constraints breed creativity.

I tend to strongly disagree with this view. I think that freedom of choice is also a great catalyst for RP and both have their constraints and their limitations.

Amarr constraints for example are the harshest, and it tends often to go in the direction of "if you don't fit to the mold, gtfo". It is a great generator of IC and OOC ostracism and that is something that I understand some Minmatars had at least to deal with a bit too. Now imagine how constant it can be in the Amarr bloc...

People seems to think that the Amarr bloc is all shiny and nice and neat inside. Well, that's not true. It's full of IC divides and characters that share close to zero values besides their God and emperor. And due to those constraints, they push those people to clash constantly and you always have to fight against IC ostracism (if not OOC at times).

Does it generate conflict and drama ? Yes. The good and the bad kind.

The thing is, as I said above, Amarr players actually speak OOCly to each other. They do things together OOCly with each other... Well, not the base grunt, myself included. I may speak OOCly at best with one or two people from other entities of the Amarrian bloc on a regular basis. Because like for the Minmatar, I probably do not share a lot of RP motivators with every player.

But the leadership does. The commons goals are not there. You are I think, rather mistaken if you think they are. We have to create them. Because waiting for them to be served on a silver plate may often lead to waiting for a long time, indeed.

I also happen to think that the Amarr players may not be many more than the minmatar ones. I admit that there is a strong imbalance of characters on the minmatar side (so few republic loyalists, so many hardliners, so many freelance ones, no thukker, no nothing). It had to be dealt with... But I can count a lot of them. A lot of them might just lack a bit of seriousness in their RP.


EDIT : I also reckon that there is the issue of minmatar players, much in the same way than gallente, are spread across various non RP entities as I said somewhere else... And they are usually unwilling to leave them in favor of a chimera of new RP entities or factional bloc that has yet to be (re)created. That in itself, is the major hurdle you will have to surpass, I feel...

[Mizhara]

"So many hardliners" wot?

[Lyn Farel]

Most true minmatar loyalists I read on the IGS have hardliner stances.