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[Mizhara]

Indeed. Still, my point remains fairly simple. If someone unsubscribes it doesn't by any means force any breaking of RP. The solution, as almost always, is simply to have a conversation beforehand to set up a quick reason for the person being gone or even giving the remaining character the freedom to roleplay out what happens in the relationship "behind the scenes" as it were.

Failing that, the person can quite simply be missing. It doesn't actually do any harm and people do go missing sometimes.

[Korsavius]

* Korsavius goes into Miz's pants; goes missing for a while

[Mizhara]

Yeah, that ain't Narnia, bub. That "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" tattoo ain't for show.

[Rin Kaelestria]

I think I've heard of this problem far too much, and it's sad because the one who didn't unsub gets jacked over. Even sadder, it always could have been avoided with just enough communication, before and after the person doing the unsubbing leaves. Provided that person cares to, that is.

In my own situation, I recently returned form being away for about 10 months. During that time, Esna and I kept in touch, as well as figured out what Rin would have been up to for the time I was absent from the game. Used Skype's IM for occasional RP interaction as well. All in all, it worked. Least Esna didn't complain, as far as I know. 

[Karmilla Strife]

I haven't had a problem with it. RL relationships survive long distances and long periods of physical separation all the time.  Vince and I seem to alternately Unsub fairly frequently. We also have to deal with fairly significant timezone differences. Sometimes we've gone almost a year without interaction in game. Typically, if it's been a while we check with each other to see what each other characters have been doing (that we'd know about) and go from there. Using out of game communication or evemail can also help a lot.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Confirming I've had zero issue with this particular problem. Even if Rin had been out of contact during the unsub period, a simple discussion beforehand of "what would they be doing" would have done just as well.

[John Revenent]

No problem here. Its been like 4 almost 5 years. lel.

[Ché Biko]

Yeah, I circumvented this whole problem by not having Ché's wife be a capsuleer. She doesn't like to mingle much with them either, and Ché is fine with that, as her discomfort around capsuleers makes him more concious of his own discomfort.
Like, last time he brought his wife along to meet the "fine folks" at ALXVP, it was seemingly inevitable that one of them would talk light-heartedly about murder, which is something Ché has gotten used to somewhat, his wife not so much.
So much for trying to show her that "these folks are different...really." :S

Hmm, I guess being married to a baseliner has it's own problems. Tiberious' words still cross Ché's mind from time to time.

[Mitara Newelle]

Confirming communication is key for low-stress, relatively seamless RPs.

[Quintrala]

It gets more potentially awkward if you've started up a new relationship in the meantime and your "ex" is playing it that the absence was just, say, a vacation.

It is even more awkward when one is willing to RP through the issue and the other will rather ignore it. Oh, but it does provide for some interesting roleplay.

Girl: "I love you."
Boy: "I love you too."
Girl 2: "Hey there, how's everything? I'm back. I had his baby*, by the way."
Boy: (suddenly quiet)
Girl: "WTF? Is she joking?"
Boy: (nods quietly and looks for exits)
Girl: (in denial) "WTF? Are you joking? After all this time together?"
(Yelling, tears, a pod-suicide and a break-up letter later...)
Girl 3: "Hey there, how's everything? WTF? What is this letter someone forwarded to me?"

* Baby? Toddler, about 10 months old and strong enough to stand. Do the maths.

[Anyanka Funk]

Get a paternity test.

[Aria Jenneth]

I certainly agree that communication is key. It's sometimes not quite that simple, however.

My own absences, for example, tend to be unplanned: I drift off to play something else for a bit, and just never quite come back (until, if we're talking about Eve, I acquire a severe itch a bit later on). My wife's the same, right down to the contrary streak that drives her to not-do anything she feels any external pressure to do, so Aria's cousin just sort of logged off one day and never got around to logging back in.

What's more, we tend to feel just guilty enough about it that we'll tend to get all avoidant and ignore attempts to contact us. "I'll log back in tomorrow and get it all sorted." Never happens.

It's not a polite way to go on vacation, but we don't intend to be impolite. In fact, we don't even intend to leave. It's just that neither of us is much good at "fun" things that start feeling like work, so unless there's something concrete (such as a conference we're expected to host) to keep us moored, or fun things to immediately do, we flake out and flake off.

My wife's much better about this than she used to be. I might actually have gotten worse.

[Lyn Farel]

Usually when it has been like 2 weeks or more where you had plenty opportunity to log in, but didn't because of 'chore', then it usually hints at things... I still feel it is the right way to at least use the outgame evemail system to notify the other player and quickly ask what to do and what to consider ICly...

Even if you come back 2 weeks after.

[Louella Dougans]

i knew someone whose character was in a rp relationship, and the other characters player died, and they didn't feel like acknowledging that, so the ended up stopping rp entirely, and stopped playing that character at all.

stuff happens.

[Indirahara]

This is my first post (hi!), but the thread was pointed out by some people I know and I thought I ought to take a look as it is a subject I have strong opinions on.

People have mentioned communication a lot already, but I am not sure I have seen anyone point out that communication is one of the most important components of any kind of relationship regardless of the medium it takes place in, whether it is between people in the real world, over the internet, or in roleplay for internet spaceships. Lack of communication between partners destroys relationships both in real life and in roleplay, whether that relationship is romantic or platonic or something else.

I have known a number of people, both in games and in the real world, for whom a breakdown in communication ripped apart something potentially wonderful and beautiful, even if all that the 'breakdown' boiled down to was a single missed conversation. Sometimes it was fixable, and sometimes it was not. For some of these people it has happened more than once, and it is very painful to watch when they are a friend of yours. 

I originally made my character a widow because I wanted an easily understandable reason to avoid becoming directly involved in these sort of things with her, at least for a time while I got my footing in EVE and its roleplay community. I admit I have been a little reclusive and really only have done anything with a small handful of people outside of occasionally piping up in the Summit and trying to provide a moderate but still noticeably Amarrian voice to some of the more heated discussion topics.

But even keeping my distance with relationships that directly involve my own character I have still been touched by the ones between others. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes not. And it makes me sad seeing people get hurt (both in and out of character, because whether we like it or not we still put a piece of ourselves into our roleplay) because someone didn't think to talk to their RP partner, or someone didn't stop and suggest someone do so. 

Quintrala demonstrates this very well, I think, with her hypothetical situation. Though it is not always just the people directly involved with the relationship that are harmed by these things happening. Sometimes there is collateral damage that people do not see - I have had arcs or storylines that I was involved in cut short without warning before as the result of communications breakdown between the person I was collaborating with and someone else.

It is not fun, especially when those storylines are leading to very significant character development for both parties - on top of whatever was going on where the communication broke down.