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[Gwen Ikiryo]

So after being absent for nearly another year and being shocked that Eve is still not dead, I decided to give playing a try again, since quitting it last year didn't really help my productivity in the way I'd hoped it would. However, I feel like I've sort of lost track of what I really wanted to do with my character.

I'm kind of a weird person in that I sorta approach roleplay characters like I would any other work of fiction; I write a background, have some themes for them in mind, and plot a rough course for their development while leaving the idea of doing something different following interaction with others open. It helps me compensate for the fact that I don't have a great sense of natural narrative direction. This has always worked for me in the past, mostly because I don't tend to play games for that long. I did this, too, with Gwen, when I started.

But Eve is a lot slower paced and long-term than most MMOs, and as things have turned out, the ideas that I originally had have sort of become messed up. The main reason for this is just how much my sense of taste and enthusiasm for certain types of fiction has shifted over the years, as well as my general emotional outlook, and correspondingly, how I've seen Eve as a setting. When I started off, I was very focused on the cyberpunk transformative internal-drama aspect (and was kind of approaching it in a World of Darkness sort of way), but later became put off by this and began thinking of it as a dark and slightly pulpy political drama, and then later went through a phase where I was into more sappy stuff and tried to play in a sort of optimistic, sparks-of-hope-in-a-bad-world kind of way.

Having stepped back a little bit, I can now kinda see that, even though it might not be super obvious, this has left my character as kind of an incoherent mess that I struggle to know what to do with. Although I've never really compromised her core traits, I've emphasized them to such wildly varying degrees  at different times - Sometimes in ways that, in retrospect, embarrass me - that they now feel contradictory and all over the place. The vagueness of it all has left me struggling to commit her to strong opinions or circles without feeling like I'm breaking consistency, which bothers me a lot.

Worse then that, though, I feel like too much of my actual personality has slipped into her characterization. It's natural for any RP character to have shades of their creator - That's a necessity when it comes to playing a single individual for a long period of time - But usually those traits are fairly locked in place, while others divert radically. However, because I've approached her from so many different angles in ways that were, in a lot of respects, governed by what I was feeling or into at the time, I feel pretty much every aspect has drifted a little close. Which has started to make playing her feel a bit weird.

I'm not sure quite how to approach it. I was sorta considering putting Gwen on the back bench for roleplay and making an alt, or just quitting again, but I thought I'd ask you guys. Does anyone else have this sort of problem? How do you resolve it?

[Utari Onzo]

I think as someone who's only a year in for EvE RP, this on is a difficult subject to touch. However, I do know it's not hard to find a way for a 'reset' in order to untangle all the mess of divergent trails and strings. A character taking time out to explore themselves, and possibly the cluster, is a great platform for trimming off the elements you don't like and moving forward with the ones you do. Revelations and life changing moments for people happen, and a fresh start might just be all you need to reinvigourate your desire for RP and development.

[The Rook]

People change. Either over time or after formative experiences. As long as you're not flip-flopping around with concepts and/or allegiances every two months there shouldn't be a problem.
If you're not putting stock on SP a new character is quickly rolled. And even if, there would be ways by now. :p

[Gwen Ikiryo]

I think as someone who's only a year in for EvE RP, this on is a difficult subject to touch. However, I do know it's not hard to find a way for a 'reset' in order to untangle all the mess of divergent trails and strings. A character taking time out to explore themselves, and possibly the cluster, is a great platform for trimming off the elements you don't like and moving forward with the ones you do. Revelations and life changing moments for people happen, and a fresh start might just be all you need to reinvigourate your desire for RP and development.

Well, another problem for me is that it's not just about how the character acts, I suppose. A lot of ideas that I now find to not really be working or to contradict eachother, I've already sort of established in her backstory at various points, and conveyed that, sometimes publicly, to others. Even her name itself is sort of in reference to them. While it wouldn't be impossible to give her a fresh outlook, I think it would be sort of difficult to jettison all the conceptual baggage without some problems - And some directions are probably effectively off limits with anything short of out-and-out retconning.

I appreciate your advice, though.

People change. Either over time or after formative experiences. As long as you're not flip-flopping around with concepts and/or allegiances every two months there shouldn't be a problem.
If you're not putting stock on SP a new character is quickly rolled. And even if, there would be ways by now. :p

SP is a pretty big factor for me. I only recently got to the point where I feel like I can do or fly anything I'm interested in without artificial barriers. And though I could transfer it over, that would cost like... 500 dollars, at least.

And I don't think I've rendered my character totally socially unviable, or anything. It's more about personal enthusiasm. It's hard to get excited for roleplay that feels indistinct and unfocused.

Maybe I'm just being neurotic, however.

[Deitra Vess]

What caused all the drastic changes to your character? Figure that out and give a reason to yourself and slowly work it into the story as a "looking back" kind of thing. I'm sure you don't remember exactly why as a person you've changed over your life as you've grown, why would your character?

[The Rook]

The advantage of RP is that it is much easier malleable compared to your in-game abilities (SP, wealth) and preferences. You have everything you need to change this and almost everything can be described and played out in a believable way. Character development.

[Veiki]

I just accepted being able to be consistently inconsistent. In this, I maintain a well constructed and consistent internal narrative for a character that I know and am aware of, while not providing it as context for others. As such, others can form their own perspectives on that character and where they might see contradiction or inconsistency none actually exists within the internal narrative construct.

To me, that's suitable because people's behaviour can often seem at times contradictory or difficult to grasp if you don't actually know how they formed their motivations and particular worldviews.

Although you've already said you haven't compromised on the core character values so I'm not sure what the real issue is?

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Although you've already said you haven't compromised on the core character values so I'm not sure what the real issue is?

If you imagine a character as being essentially a list of qualities - Stuff like "Nationalist" "Liberal" "Kind" "Jaded" "Scholarly" "Extroverted", etc - I feel like, though I haven't changed them at their root, I've distorted their relative importance and twisted them around too much at various times that it has made her kind of uninspiring and awkward. And that's been largely accidental, not willful.

A person who is, for example, "Spoiled, Pious, Melancholy and a Patriot" can be an entirely different person from someone who is "Spoiled, Pious, Melancholy and a Patriot", if that makes sense. You can bend things to the point of where you probably shouldn't without strictly breaking them.

[Veiki]

Yeah, I get that, but I still think you're probably overthinking it. Just re-emphasize what you want and feel happy with, it's not like people will probably notice too much, and if they do they'll probably always see them differently to how you do.

I don't think Salinger wrote Holden Caulfield to say, "Go kill John Lennon and Ronald Reagan!" But some people out there seem to have read that. vOv

[Karmilla Strife]

I've found it better to keep the same character and make changes over time. This is partly out of interest in character development, but also there have been changes as my OOC interests have changed. I personally find it harder to play a newer character as they are less developed in my mind. All of my alts have some sort of background and basic personality worked out but I've only ever enjoyed playing one besides Karmilla and that character took many months to come to life.

Some characters stay the same for years, others seem to change quite regularly. I tend towards the latter but I try to make the changes gradual and believable. If I'm unhappy with some element of the character, I find a way to change it. I base those changes on IC reasons but I have once before made a flat-out OOC change to the character. (I had a bit too much real-life bleeding over into the RP)

[Casiella]

Necro alert - apologies, but sorrynotsorry because this is highly relevant and I suspect lots of returning bittervets are thinking similar things right now with the alpha clone state stuff.

So, Gwen, it's not that odd. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think that your post was something I'd written because it matches up so well. My original main character - Casiella - was intended very cyberpunky, engaged in shady dealings and mischief, and whatnot. As I drifted away from that as an interest within EVE for various reasons, she kind of faded to the back, even when I had headcanon for what she was doing (mostly trading, S&I, and running missions for the Cartel or RSS).

Now, she's got tons of SP relative to any of my alts, and I love the stuff I can do with Casiella-as-avatar but not necessarily Casiella-as-character. Her employment history tab is a mile long, and I'm mildly ashamed of that so I leave her in a solo corp now even when it might be sort of fun to join somebody or other.

So this leaves me with a bit of a quandary: try to rehab her as character so I can keep enjoying all the cool stuff she can do with her skill points, standings, assets, blah blah blah, or move to a different character? I've tried the latter several times and end up back with her in the end, although to be fair that was before skill injectors.

At the moment, I'm sort of deciding not to decide: still re-exploring the game and, to some extent, re-learning it since a lot has been added in the last 3-4 years, while at least training my many alts at alpha rates (slow but non-zero). But I feel like I will need to make some decisions soon, and thus input is welcome.

[Jev North]

For the people who still remember Casi, you've been gone for what, three, four years? Two decades in dog years, at least. It feels like no time at all to you because you haven't "lived" it, but I dare say you can get away with a few changes to Casi's ideas, views, temperament, or loyalties. That's basically what that mysterious "character growth" concept entails.

I've never liked the undercurrent of thought that the only real roleplay involves some kind of faction loyalty, and changing it is not just an in-character betrayal of the highest order, but also a sign of out-of-character weakness of some sort.

[Casiella]

I apologize for any implication that only faction RP is valid. Last night, while I lurked in The Summit, a debate on nullsec politics and the M-O battle occurred. I found it just as interesting and valid as any discussion of, say, the conflict in Black Rise or whatever.

[Jev North]

Sorry. That's not intended to be an accusation of you personally, or of anyone specific. It's a lament about the way being immersed in bad culture made you uncertain about some changes after four years.

I don't want to dictate the way you feel about this, but I sincerely think it's okay. You won the game! It's okay. You're free now.

[Silver Night]

I've seen a number of people pretty successfully change their characters up. Given all the tinkering that podders can do with their brains and particularly given a long absence to work with, you could make a lot of changes relatively easily.

I mean, Silver went from Caldari to Sansha to Republic back to Caldari with relatively few problems (though frankly switching corporations or factions is probably easier than changing up the actual character. He was pretty Silver-y throughout.)