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[orange]

A good number of the Gallente characters seem to be solidly anti-slavery.

I do not think the Matari (or Caldari) necessarily have the empire-level ability to take the moral high-road.

The Matari see themselves only a few missteps from being right were they were only a few hundred years ago, slaves of the Amarr.  The problem for the Matari isn't necessarily slavery as a concept, but rather them being the slaves.

Since the Matari are more concerned with ensuring they are not subjugated by the Amarr, they can make deals with other lesser evils, like the Cartel.  The Matari might even sell Amarr to the Cartel!

We talk about how evil the Empire is, but from the perspective of either the Federation or Empire, both the Republic and State are havens for those with looser morals and willing to take the low-road to achieve their goals.  The Empire's and Federation's heroes are those who uphold and are exemplars for their moral codes.

[Merdaneth]

It is more difficult to organize a group to be anti-something than pro-something. Being anti-something makes you dependent one someone else for your play.

There are very few pro-slavery or even slavery interested people. Most Amarr loyalist for example only pay lipservice to the concept of slavery. They are only officially a slaver because they are loyal to the Empire, but they don't do anything with slaves.

It doesn't help that the game doesn't allow you to do anything with slaves. You can carry them around in your hold for anti-slavers to get as a reward when they destroy you, that is about it.

In my experience a significant number of players in a supposedly anti-slaver alliance like U'K also couldn't care less about slaves. And most certainly won't want to risk their ship to save a few.

You could shoot at Amarr NPC haulers and free slaves from them, but as far as being really anti-slavery, there are few things you can really initiate against other players that are more than merely another arbitrary motivation to pew stuff in space.

[Casiella]

The Republic Security Services makes backroom deals with the Cartel all the time, it's perfectly in character 

Indeed.

[Kazzzi]

~Slavers~ often give me the 'I don't own any slaves line'. Or if they do own any, they minimize it or brush it off as no big deal which isn't in line with my perceptions of Imperial Amarrians. Based on the attitudes of Amarr NPC agents and historical slaver cultures, you'd think there would be more concern over Amarrian's rights to own slaves. Indeed virtually no capsuleers had any problem with the Empress' emancipation despite news articles saying some Amarrian holders were in uproar over it. I wish there were more hardline slavers and less politically correct diet coke slavers. Things like escaped slave hunter corps would be awesome. If more people actually expressed interest in slavery, likely more people would express interest in abolitionism.

[BloodBird]

~Slavers~ often give me the 'I don't own any slaves line'. Or if they do own any, they minimize it or brush it off as no big deal which isn't in line with my perceptions of Imperial Amarrians. Based on the attitudes of Amarr NPC agents and historical slaver cultures, you'd think there would be more concern over Amarrian's rights to own slaves. Indeed virtually no capsuleers had any problem with the Empress' emancipation despite news articles saying some Amarrian holders were in uproar over it. I wish there were more hardline slavers and less politically correct diet coke slavers. Things like escaped slave hunter corps would be awesome. If more people actually expressed interest in slavery, likely more people would express interest in abolitionism.

Welcome to EVE, a game where what is awesome in-character is mottled dow by politically-correct tongue-in-check RL ideals.

I'd LOVE to see a Federal corp take 'orders' from the SDII (Black Eagles) and be politically hard-core anti-Separatism /anti-State co-operation etc. Everyone loves being Federal Paladins. Where are all the Blackguards who murder and kill for the Federation? Where are all the guys who ENFORCE Federal ideals like anti-slavery? If I ran a Hard-core Federal corp I'd go out of my way to deck folks like PIE and I-RED in turn and order to get action and DEMAND that we on't play niceties with our idealogical enemies, as well as political. Not to mention how ILF would be in for a ride.

There are few hard-core anti slaver corps. Few hard-core slaver corps. And as far as I'm aware none of the above mentioned stuff.

[Kazzzi]

I'd LOVE to see a Federal corp take 'orders' from the SDII (Black Eagles)

Hardcore Black Eagle RPers would be hawt. Scary Gallente KGB agents.

[Wanoah]

So, I get the vibe that U'K (or whatever they are now) and EM aren't what they used to be? What a shame.

When I started out in Eve, with the possible exception of Jericho Fraction, the precursors of U'K and EM and their opposites in PIE and 1PG pretty much were Eve RP. The Minmatar-Amarr conflict was always strong and centre-stage.

As an ex-U'K guy, I am quite curious as to what has happened with them. Anyone care to give me a précis?

[Ulphus]

So, I get the vibe that U'K (or whatever they are now) and EM aren't what they used to be? What a shame.

When I started out in Eve, with the possible exception of Jericho Fraction, the precursors of U'K and EM and their opposites in PIE and 1PG pretty much were Eve RP. The Minmatar-Amarr conflict was always strong and centre-stage.

As an ex-U'K guy, I am quite curious as to what has happened with them. Anyone care to give me a précis?

I can't really speak for U'K, but what do you think EM used to be?

I've only been in EM for 18 months or so, but it's still very much an RP alliance. From OOC chats I've had with members of SF and U'K, we seem more RP than either of those organisations, but not having been in either of those alliances I can't say that from personal experience.

As for the Amarr-Minmatar conflict, as far as I can tell, EM stopped wanting to play pre-arranged wars[1], and given our self-described role as "Defenders of the Republic" there wasn't much IC motivation to invade Amarr space. We still shoot Amarr when we can catch them, but I'd have to say that a lot of our focus is more on troublesome pirate groups inside the Republic than Amarr groups who are outside the Republic. We support the TLF militia, but given the mechanics of FW and how they integrate with Alliances, that's more through logistics than actual fighting.

Does that help?

[1] Reading through some of the old forum posts about OOC rules of engagement makes me go "WTF?" quite a lot. These days, if we war-dec someone it's because we think (IC) that we can change something. Wars as instruments of policy rather than as entertainment.

[Wanoah]

I can't really speak for U'K, but what do you think EM used to be?

Active.

I was getting the impression that EM had gone quiet or somewhat inactive. Glad to hear that they are alive and kicking.

In retrospect, there always was a significant number of people in U'K that opted out of interacting IC with the wider population: preferring to keep RP internal or light other than actions in space. Perhaps this attitude is one that has prevailed?

As for RoE, well, I felt that they tended to be a necessity where you had long-running wars. A conflict that lasts a few weeks or even a few months can just be played out, but a conflict that spans years needs some kind of OOC give-and-take to avoid it collapsing into a dramafest. Rules of engagement were mostly about avoiding metagaming and trolling: stuff that can truly wreck an otherwise enjoyable war.

Some people are happy with the idea of victory by any means, but I personally was always in the camp that felt that a victory through OOG means would be a hollow one and that you should win in-game and in space. Or lose by the same means. For me, it was always the attraction of the RP corps and RP conflicts that they generally involved a higher standard of gaming than the server population at large.

[Silver Night]

I don't know that tending to RP with people within EM is an attitude, so much. It seems like it is a sort of natural tendency. They're the people who are right there, you have easy access to them, and you have a lot of reasons to interact with them.

I know when I joined EM, my RPing outside of the alliance dropped off a lot. That wasn't because I didn't want to RP with people outside EM, it was because I was doing a lot of RPing inside EM. I think when you are part of an organization that has an active internal RP culture, it is actually RPing outside it that takes a conscious decision and effort. At least, it's been that way for me: I realized that I hadn't done much RP outside of EM in a while, and decided to make an effort to change that.

[Isobel Mitar]

What Ulphus and Silver Night say. We RP and are (still) very much a pro-Matari, pro-Republic alliance.

One thing that might be too obvious, but maybe still useful to point out to the general RP public is that EM public channel is IC, and ICly ...a public comm channel for contacting EM.

[Kazzzi]

As for U'k/D'k. CCP ending events and ignoring RP in general for the longest time hurt abolitionists a bit. We still have Admiral Karishal Muritor's corpse in a safe place, waiting for when CCP lets us return him to Pator. Also faction war kinda replaced a lot of Amarr/Minmatar RP. Alliances have little place in FW no matter how much we bitch to CCP.

D'K has a new executor, who is just as RP friendly as Karn was. He has some good plans in the works to expand our RP. It should be interesting. But no, we have never been as immersive as EM. Council still bases decisions on our RP though. We don't take it lightly.

Wanoah, there's still a lot of faces here you might remember, still doing the same actions > words RP.

[Ulphus]

I was getting the impression that EM had gone quiet or somewhat inactive. Glad to hear that they are alive and kicking.

Well, we're still active - We spent most of the first 6 months of this year in active wars (the PIE war is mostly ignored internally), including a couple of weeks where I think we had 11 wars running. It makes us a bit busy :p

In retrospect, there always was a significant number of people in U'K that opted out of interacting IC with the wider population: preferring to keep RP internal or light other than actions in space. Perhaps this attitude is one that has prevailed?

Yeah, there's enough internal RP that we don't have to go seeking external RP out all that much, and personally, a lot of the venues for external RP were full of slavers and pirates, and it became difficult for me to justify going to those places, especially after we finally set VETO red.

And what Silver said. EM's internal RP cup runneth over, and all the casual RP I could want is already there. There needs to be a reason to go out and find more, and I haven't seen much reason recently. Of course, not going out much means not meeting new people, which means not finding reasons, which means not going out... it's a feedback loop.

Does anyone have any suggestions for breaking out of that feedback loop? Or is it not something that bites most people?

As for RoE, well, I felt that they tended to be a necessity where you had long-running wars. A conflict that lasts a few weeks or even a few months can just be played out, but a conflict that spans years needs some kind of OOC give-and-take to avoid it collapsing into a dramafest. Rules of engagement were mostly about avoiding metagaming and trolling: stuff that can truly wreck an otherwise enjoyable war.

I did find some old old threads about trying not to blob each other to get "good fights", but that seemed to die due to the fog of war. If you bring 2 battlecruisers and two cruisers, and I only see the two BC, then you might have 2 BS and 2BC, so I'll bring enough to deal with that. And when you see 10 people in local, you don't know that 6 of them are AFK, so you get real cautious, so when you see 2 BS and 2 BC, you think there might be another 6 ships around as well and start to feel a bit blobbed.

That seemed to make for big misunderstandings back then. Recent members don't even know that sort of agreement might exist.

Some people are happy with the idea of victory by any means, but I personally was always in the camp that felt that a victory through OOG means would be a hollow one and that you should win in-game and in space. Or lose by the same means. For me, it was always the attraction of the RP corps and RP conflicts that they generally involved a higher standard of gaming than the server population at large.

These days, the general EM policy seems to be that IC we want to win. We're not going to have gentlemen's agreements OOC that change IC decisions, because that ruins immersion for us. We will have OOC agreements about OOC decisions though, if the distinction makes sense? We're not interested in getting other people to stop playing because they aren't having fun, but IC we want to drive pirates out of the Republic (go pirate in Amarr space!) or get them to stop pirating, and we will try (IC) to be as effective as we can at that. We won't try crashing their vent server in the middle of a fight, or hacking their forums, or other OOG things, but if we can get your alliance to go somewhere else by blowing up your hisec mission runners, then we're totally there.

There is still a bit of room for OOC considerations affecting IC decisions, but it has to be plausible and true to the characters involved.

[Silver Night]

Does anyone have any suggestions for breaking out of that feedback loop? Or is it not something that bites most people?

Well, like I mentioned, it was something I noticed with my character, but Silver (and most associated alts) probably have less of an IC issue being involved with pirates and such.

Avoiding pirate bars and stuff, there is The Summit (which I know isn't always so great either) or the New Eden Assembly which is a lot more structured.

I think that promoting some of the channels that EM people regularly use but which are not much known outside the alliance, even though they are public, might be an option too.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

As I recall the thing that started the war with PIE was a raid into Amarrian high sec with The Wolves of Pator back when the old events where up & running.

Our take was that we where recovering people that had been abducted from the Republic by rogue slavers. PIE held that we where interfering with legitimate Imperial trade.

So, if someone gave the alliance a lead on abducted citizens that could be rescued by a foray into the Empire I wonder if we might not jump at it? Those of us who can still do that without attracting fire from the faction cops that is.

Which seems to dovetail back into the OP a bit.