Teinyhr, did I at any point say anyone was obliged to provide a fight? Did I at any point say anyone was obliged to make it easy? Maybe don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying is that this overwhelming lack of willingness to actually reflect spoken words with action in the game is in the end rather harmful to the RP of Eve. For the lack of a better metaphor, it's like tabletop roleplayers never leaving the initial tavern and seeing the rest of the world, leaving the 'campaign' fallow and stagnant until the GM throws their hands in the air and shuts down the game.
Tell me, how exactly am I putting words in your mouth that you haven't already said? How exactly am I to interpret "
The few people who are interested in both playing the game and roleplaying in it (as if there's really a difference) are massively outnumbered by the ones who just treat it as a shiny chat client" "The culture in Eve's RP community has changed to a risk-averse and conflict-averse soup " "There's not enough doers left who can take on the 'solved' Eve in gameplay, like in the days of Star Fraction etc, and nowhere near enough people willing to take on a bit of conflict neither in space nor elsewhere. " "We've become as much risk averse twats as the rest of Eve, only we go even further and won't even bloody play the game anymore. Conflict is an unspeakable horror to a huge amount of roleplayers," "RP entities stopped trying to actually play the damn game" "But mostly, it's again on us. We have become so fucking afraid of failure that we don't fucking do anything anymore. We hide in highsec or in FW, because sticking our toe out into the actual game means taking the risk of getting it bitten off."How exactly am I not supposed to understand from those, that you wish people to shoot other people more, and anyone who doesn't, is "killing the RP?" Those really sound to me like lines where you want to make people feel guilty about not doing something you consider important. Maybe not you specifically, but people who've voiced the same complaints have lamented how roleplayers just stay holed up in stations and don't come out to be shot at - why the fuck would they? Imagine that someone is standing in front of your house yelling "come out so I can shoot you!" - and even if you were immortal, it would still hurt like hell, so would you? That is what I meant with not being obliged to make it easy.
And respectfully, I disagree with your resolution that taking action, i.e. blasting you in the face, because there really isn't much else to do outside the station, is somehow going to save the RP community. I wonder how often you see people claim they're going to kill another capsuleer, and then not follow up on it? I don't recall seeing such threats that often made. I mean, my character is not going to be hurt by words so hard that they feel the need to go blasting fools. Likewise I disagree with your tabletop RPG metaphor, because for one, there is no GM in the first place and maybe they have already explored the world to their hearts content, and now prefer to spend their time in a tavern reflecting on their past adventures. I mean if we're talking about the good old days and people who've quit or just aren't out there doing stuff anymore. Then we're talking about people who've already adventured a lot.
So apparently I must have struck a nerve because I did quite specifically say it's perfectly valid gameplay and RP. In fact: "Of course, this is perfectly valid gameplay. It's perfectly valid RP for that matter." quoth the nulltard. There's no need to get so up in arms that you have to start putting words in my mouth or tilt at the "urdoinitrong" windmill to try and drown my actual argument here.
Damn right I'm going to defend diversity in roleplay. Your actual argument is pretty hard to follow, at least for me. Don't forget to quote the whole thing though; "
Of course, this is perfectly valid gameplay. It's perfectly valid RP for that matter. My characters can simply scoff when mouths are running in one direction and someone's feet are going the other way. It's just not very healthy for the RP in general, as it'll lead to stagnation of both characters and the setting. " This seems pretty dead set again guilting roleplayers who don't actively engage in PvP for hurting the community.
I don't know where you're getting this "you have to be a fucking grimdark murdermachine to roleplay in Eve" from either. The only thing I keep lamenting here is that people don't back up their words or choices with actual action. This isn't a needle at you, now, is it? If your character is against bloodshed and actually acts upon that, why would you take such umbrage at my words? They're clearly not aimed at you in any specific way. My mention of the isk value wasn't aimed at you either, it was a response to Louella implying competency means hiding things from risk.
Because there doesn't seem to be a place for characters that aren't out there actively doing something, and out there actively doing something most of the time means shooting at people, scanning down stuff to shoot at or to be shot at, or mining. Industrials, scientists and people who generally don't wish to engage in destruction for their own reasons are derided for being useless and their opinions worth nothing. So it feels like the only acceptable type of character to play is someone who actively wants to kill other people, for whatever reason, just as long as they want to kill. Just my personal experience from how my character has been treated and seen other similar characters being treated time and time again in IC venues, but I acknowledge this view can be biased.
Hmm. That could be solved by your character finding a group of valid targets, surely? It's Eve. There's bound to be some people so horrible that there's no redeeming them or their crews, thus justifying shoot on sight, even for a semi-pacifist. Blooders, "nulltards", whatever. Maybe an area of space holds enough significance to her that random capsuleers encroaching upon it are surely ebils and need shooting? Sure, if it's in space, it's IC but there's so much room in a setting like Eve that you can damn near justify anything IC, up to and including pacifists bringing down the wrath.
Sure there are valid targets. Sansha, blooders, various other criminal factions, Diana Kim. But killing them still needs a trigger, especially if I am going to go and do 20+ jumps and try and find them. My character, as stated, wouldn't go out of her way to find someone to kill, even if they deserve it, but will kill them if she happens upon them. Pacifist was perhaps a too strong of a word, she is nonviolent unless there is a good, pressing reason to be violent. I suppose the trope of "
Technical Pacifist" wouldn't be too far off. Avoids violence but is not shy of using it if push comes to shove, but dislikes killing people. After all, killing capsuleers is a pointless effort anyway.
"Of course, this is perfectly valid gameplay. It's perfectly valid RP for that matter." quoth the nulltard. Where's the balance though? Also, null is hardly a prerequisite for conflict. Hell, it's antithetical to conflict these days since you're not going to find many roleplayers out there. I think I've maybe shared local with Arrendis and Utari a couple of times, and can't actually think of a moment when we've shared grids. Highsec doesn't have to mean shipspinning in a station.
Null is just the go-to place where you can have PvP without repercussions (sec status wise), so mainly that's why I've brought it up. Highsec doesn't need to mean shipspinning in a station no, but again, most of the time my character and characters she hates enough to shoot on sight live so far apart, conflict in space is just not happening unless I go out of my way to find it, and most of the time, I just don't feel like hunting someone for hours on end, not the least because most often I don't have the time, and likely many other players who are getting older with more responsibilities don't have that kind of time either. If I were 10 years younger I would be more active in this regard, surely, and probably same applies to many other players.
Again, please don't put words in my mouth. No one, quite literally no one has said 'it's the only thing that matters'. It is however, pretty much completely absent. Especially in a way that would matter, like groups actually locking horns over something. Lamenting something having pretty much completely died off compared to the days of when RP was several orders of magnitude more active in Eve doesn't mean it is the only thing that matters.
Well, it seems to be something that you at least higly value, maybe not the only thing that matters, yes. And I don't consider it completely absent. FW still has RP elements in it to my understanding, Nauplius's Demon Temples gets bashed regularly, off the top of my head. But what is there for RP groups to fight about? Some storywise important pisshole in null or low? Maybe there's some idea in that, actually, but that too will eventually become stale, and I think that's why most larger RP alliances have either died or reduced signifigantly - why fight for something you can't actually affect at all and at worst even CCP gives you the finger?
There's a reason RP has almost completely died off in Eve compared to back in the day, and I'm pretty sure that a massive chunk of Eve's gameplay and the setting's complexity now being pretty much vilified by the RP community is to blame right alongside CCP's decision to freeze the world in place.
I think the latter reason is more heavier than the former. Roleplayers can't affect the gameworld no matter how large entities they grow, and fighting for something you can't change is not only pointless, eventually people will just burn out and fizzle. People shouldn't RP for rewards, but IMO it should be rewarded, somehow. I mean, 70 titans blow up and you get a permanent landmark. People OOC rage at a monument in Jita, it gets changed to a shattered monument. Hundreds (600+) of people fought over RP reasons (Star Fraction POS IIRC) in Kamela back in 2009 or so? There was not even a fucking word about it in in-game news, just a tiny mention in the evelopedia article for Kamela and that was only because I added it there myself. And IIRC the whole insorum thing where roleplayers got fucked over too.