I agree with the sentiment of this post definitely, but I don't think I've seen the particular strawman this is tilting at. No one that I've seen have talked about "not real roleplayers" or anything like that so far. The issues I've seen raised (and I've been part of either raising or discussing) have been these two:
1. When we start seeing local sperg about #maga (Make Amarr Great Again), God Emperor Trump and so on from the parties supposedly there for IC reasons, it's a sign that the sandbox has turned into kitty litter and it's time to empty it out. There's no more decent conflict to be had once it turns into shit like that. You feel that character to be there for "In Character Reasons"? This is useful to the continued narrative of Thebeka?
2. Now we're finally seeing actual factional conflict theaters where loyalists can clash and actually affect each other, is probably the wrong time to start gathering up the non-RP contacts and start shitting all over it. I would very much prefer not to see the faction corps/alliances retreat back into insularity and keyboard warrioring instead of undocking and fighting each other as they've been the last few weeks, and I very much worry that is what's going to happen if we just start gathering non-RPer contacts and punish them for coming out to play. We've all got the contacts, most of us have been out there and can cajole an FC or two to come shit on the theater if we want, but all that'd do is effectively what Snuff have been doing: Short term fun, killing long-term content completely. What kind of RP/Content do you think there'd be if Arrendis had gotten their FC to park that 160 man fleet in Thebeka, shitting all over the content there instead of aiming it at PIRAT?
Limit it to those moments when there's need for some extra flex, at least. Hire the mercs for the Fortizar you can't break with what you got, sure. Pop some structures here and there, create conflicts and inflict some losses of either symbolic or financial value, but don't suppress content between RP entities by coming in to third-party shit on it for no other reason than to third-party shit on it. Which you know perfectly well is what was being done on that grid.
I haven't seen anyone claim people shouldn't be involved because "they're not real roleplayers". Nor have I ever seen anyone, RPers or not, "speaking in Shakespearean English". What I have seen is calls for caution. The kinds of fleets and conflicts we're seeing lately is something that must not be nipped in the bud. It's new, it's potentially rather fragile, and you know perfectly well that many of those involved can't afford to keep it up against entities like hobos and such on neither financial grounds or time available to spend on it.
The battle report had a pretty cool and close heft to it between the Minmatar and Amarr sides (forgive the over-simplification, Samira. It's a clusterfuck.) in terms of ISK, while the third parties came out almost loss free. This is unsustainable. Somewhere around 10-12b between the two sides is small time to many entities, but it's quite simply not very worth repeating if it's just to be sacrificed to the "lol #maga, build the wall TRUMP!" fuckslaps shitting up both the fight and local rather than the enemies these characters actually fight for or against. Keep in mind, these are the people who are religiously into the "frigs all day erry day" size category because it's the only sustainable way, normally.
I love to see that RPers are getting into the decent sized PvP play again. It's been missing for quite some time and it's still got a long way to go to get back to the days of yore. (I vividly remember my first big RP fight, sitting in my shiny new Wolf as a reasonably sizable Dread fleet landed on a Star Fraction tower.) Let's just not ruin it before it becomes stable and sustainable. Knock down some sandcastles, sure. Try to get some timers going and some fleet fights, definitely.
... don't just shit on it, and make RP conflicts loathsome by smearing shitlers like the hobo fuckslaps over it just because a couple of them are RPers who gave up.
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Topic: Thebeka and the Danger of "Real Roleplayers" (Read 4600 times)