Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BloodBird]

I don't see your issue Miz, not really. There are a myriad of things that can be done with this, many things that could happen.

Let's see... they can be left alone and nothing happens.
They can be subverted by outside forces, perhaps a UK invasion force led by mizhara.
Religious beliefs can swing the other way, and this minority in the majority-nation end up being assimilated into tribal faith, abandoning god and tearing their holy sites down.
They could be declared unwanted and asked to vacate the planet and the republic under treat of planetary carpet-bombing, perhaps.
The nearby republican settlements accept their existence and leave them alone with their faith.
All the nearby settlements decide to kick them out and the city is burned down and looted by an angry mob.
Kyriel can lose ruleship rights and be forced to hand control over to... who knows? After that, perhaps a new radical way opens.

All the while, House Kyriel may be declared war on and a nice war in space above the planet spans out.

As for what the Amarrians are doing, there are no mass-conversions or annexations of faith or anything like that, this is not an imperial invasion or mind-rape experiment or anything, I'd advice you to read the tread on EVE-O now for a detailed account IC. If you, or anyone, have ideas or wished for any IC interaction or events feel free to mail me or convo me (if I'm ever online long enough, that is) and we talk it over.

I don't mind RP at all, that's the reason for this story-arc. But I would appreciate that anyone who want to take part don't just god-mod their way to some desired victory sidelining my work and/or any realistic factors or any shit like that. Please don't, the Seri-Niki fiasco still lingers in my head, no offense intended though.

Off to bed, more on this another day for anyone interested.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Alright, so... nearest I can tell, here are the parameters Mizhara is looking to operate in...

1. The operation must be "Minmatar", that is, it must originate within the Minmatar people/tribes, and not just a "tit for tat" thing within the Amarr Empire. For bonus points, directly involve Bloodbird's project here.

2. The effort must show that there are means beyond violence and outright coercion for getting Amarrians to leave the Empire and/or give up their slaves/faith/loyalty.

3. Most importantly, however, the effort must be demonstratably "true"; furthermore, it must be demonstratibly obstructible by others, preferably by application of in-game mechanics (i.e., pewpew).


Please correct me if I'm wrong in these assumptions, which are gleaned from many other discussions as well as this particular thread.

[Mizhara]

Alright, so... nearest I can tell, here are the parameters Mizhara is looking to operate in...

1. The operation must be "Minmatar", that is, it must originate within the Minmatar people/tribes, and not just a "tit for tat" thing within the Amarr Empire. For bonus points, directly involve Bloodbird's project here.

2. The effort must show that there are means beyond violence and outright coercion for getting Amarrians to leave the Empire and/or give up their slaves/faith/loyalty.

3. Most importantly, however, the effort must be demonstratably "true"; furthermore, it must be demonstratibly obstructible by others, preferably by application of in-game mechanics (i.e., pewpew).


Please correct me if I'm wrong in these assumptions, which are gleaned from many other discussions as well as this particular thread.

Not too far off the mark. I've always found that fictional endeavors should be possible to respond to with either In-Space activity (pewpew or otherwise), or have a good solid chance of being 'countered' with fictional endeavors that are well within realism and capsuleer capabilities. It doesn't at all have to include Bloodbird's project here, as it was only used as an example of the imbalance in how the two factions can interact/combat each other's efforts within realistic parameters.

On the second mark, yes there needs to be non-violent alternatives. Violence is best dealt with in a non-fictional way anyway, through warfare in space. Of course, to make this happen, one-man alt corps is kind of out of the question since it just costs too much time, effort and money compared to the potential pewpew you can get out of it.

Basically, there's just too much limitation on what the Tribes side of things can do on a fictional level against Empire interests, and not enough on the other side of things.

[Orthic]

Ok, so I think I missed the exact point on this one – or more that I’m trying to figure out which of a couple things it might be. 

What I first thought: There’s not much we can do to actively counter someone who claims to have done [whatever they did].

What it seems like it might have actually been: The Amarrians have more believable options for what they can do to the minmatar via </sip> than the Minmatar have to do back because of the nature of the PF.

If it’s the latter, I don’t have much to say, unfortunately, because that does kinda seem like the way things are according to the PF, though I’m always game for brainstorming.

The former, on the other hand, led to some thinking. As a couple of examples, let’s take Naqam’s happy chips and Merd’s orphanages in the Republic. The former occurred (I believe) back before facwar came in and RPers still believed in the use of wardecs to settle issues. Thus, Naqam was wardecked, and presumably the continuing distribution of the happy chips might have depended on the outcome of this war.

In the other case, we had Merd announcing on the IGS that he had (through a series of proxies) acquired/built several orphanages in the Republic. Didn’t really seem like there was much anyone could do about it despite great gnashing of teeth and exclamations of rawr. Then, someone with reasonably high republic something-or-other standings showed up on IGS and in the summit claiming to have identified the orphanages in question and, acting on orders from the RJD or some such, had apprehended, tried, and executed a bunch of the folks in charge as traitors. Unless there was some behind the scenes RP involved in finding said folks, it rather reeked of godmoding.

So, the question, how do we deal with conflicts like this that occur outside what the game mechanics let us do? Much of the point of EVE is the non-consensual combat, but that doesn’t really work here – or leads to godmoding. Only way to avoid that then, would be a little ooc contact between the players involved to sort out a fun way to play out the conflict that doesn’t one side or the other being godmoded. Otherwise, for example, rather than say, “Well, that was a setback,” and closing up shop (which I think is what merd did but I don’t really recall and can’t check the EO boards from work), he could have said “Huh, not sure who you just executed, everyone in my operation says they’re fine.” And then we have a clash of godmoders and it’s all sorts of fun to watch but not particularly fun RP for those involved.

I’m sure I had a point amidst all these interesting (to me) thoughts.

Oh right. Yeah. If you’re going to do something like this where /sip is going to lead to people being unhappy and wanting to stop your nefarious scheme, it’s best to be prepared for those people and have some idea how you want to handle the resulting conflicts. This will probably require some chatting OOC to figure out what makes sense, etc.

Or, of course, we could return to the days when RPers settled matters via wardecks. I heard there was a time when RPers were among the best pvpers in the game because of the perpetual wardecks – might be fun to get back to something like that.

… I think I made my point. Maybe not. Damned work-related distractions.

[Borza]

Basically, there's just too much limitation on what the Tribes side of things can do on a fictional level against Empire interests, and not enough on the other side of things.

*gently strokes his pet Bloody Fist of Matar contacts

[Senn Typhos]

I'm gonna have to agree with Miz on this one.

It gets pretty irritating to try to think up ways to prove something like planetary influence or other endeavors with no in-game mechanic to "prove" their existence. The problem is, with no mechanic, no moderator so to speak on the part of CCP, it comes down to the same set of equally futile options:

1). Player A makes his claim, and player B replies by saying A made the whole thing up. Which is a weird way to deal with politics. If one person says there are swarms of soldiers massacring a town, and someone disagrees, wouldn't there be, I dunno... a news team, someone with a camera, some teenager with a cell phone? You could argue that politicians can downplay or flatly deny events, but, for example, it isn't difficult to empirically decide whether or not the IRA attacked Belfast. Saying "clearly this is a ruse" is just absurd.

2). Player A makes his claim that he's killed player B's entire home colony with a particle beam accelerator cannon that he bought from the Sansha with Jovian FunDollars(TM) and powered with unicorn blood he stole from Sauron on a dare from Luke Skywalker. Player B accepts this claim, and now has to play his character's grief at losing his homeland to the aforementioned cannon.

3). Player A politely asks player B if he can kill player B's entire home colony with the aforementioned cannon, and player B decides the idea sucks, so once again the concept dies instantly.

4). A and B go with the first option, and while A continues to make announcements on the IGS about the success of his particle beam cannon and his conquest through space, B continually makes statements opposing this by showing live camera feed of the perfectly unharmed colony, which A denounces as advanced CGI, etc. etc. etc.

There's really no good option for how to approach these kinds of things. We saw it all over the Sansha events. The Sansha said they stole citizens, the players said their personal militias were killing toasters left and right, and in the end it all meant jack.

I really wish there were some mechanic by which we as players could assert our presence on planets, but at the moment, that's relegated to shit like 0.0 sov.

[Lyn Farel]

Well, while I agree on that I still don't understand what Kyriel announcement has to do with that, because it just depicts what already can exist in the Republic.

Other than that, I might be wrong but it sounds like to me people are taking that as some kind of RP battle/struggle we absolutely have to win or sadface forever...

[Ulphus]

Other than that, I might be wrong but it sounds like to me people are taking that as some kind of RP battle/struggle we absolutely have to win or sadface forever...

I wouldn't have said they have to win, it's just that, being eve, there needs to be some real competition. Win or lose, a struggle would be nice.

If you can't interact with it, then is it really relevant? It is the sort of thing that some people feel like their characters should care about, and have the resources to do something about, and can't affect it because it's basically decorative fluff with no in-game representation. It's basically like playing cops and robbers and yelling "I shot you" - "No you didn't" - not really satisfying to every type of player.

It seems to me that the combination of having a character who can and should do something about it, but having no way to do anything, is what gets people upset.

[Julianus Soter]

In the end, roleplay is a performance art. It isn't really done for the benefit of the other person you're rp'ing with, unless the rp really is limited on that scale. It's for the benefit of the larger audience, the community, people who read the forums, etc.

The more convincing and compelling a narrative you craft for the benefit of the audience of that roleplay, the more successful and accepted your roleplay will be, as it is preferred by the audience.

Case study: Corporation A claims corporation B is interfering in affairs of Region X. Corporation A then provides in character intelligence about Corporation B's activities. Corporation B claims Corporation A is 'wrong', and that the information is propaganda. Let's assume for the sake of the discussion, Corporation B does have pilots, in some shape or form, in Region X.

The larger audience to this scenario will likely side with corporation A. They have provided an effort, in good faith, to interact with the facts of the situation in-game, provide an in character response to the activities of Corporation B.

Corporation B can, of course, claim that Corporation A is lying, but are we obligated to take them seriously? Of course not, not unless they can provide substantive proof that Corp A is lying.

In the end, the larger Eve Online community will favor Corporation A in this situation until corporation B responds with substantive roleplay of their own, such as a justification for their involvement in Region X, the terrible injustice Corporation A has done to the inhabitants of the region, et cetera.

Simply put, roleplaying is similar to a free market environment. The broader community will gravitate towards roleplay made in good faith and with basis to their arguments. Claiming something doesn't make it so, particularly when there is obvious evidence to the contrary available to the general public.

That's my view of it, anyway.

[Mizhara]

Other than that, I might be wrong but it sounds like to me people are taking that as some kind of RP battle/struggle we absolutely have to win or sadface forever...

I wouldn't have said they have to win, it's just that, being eve, there needs to be some real competition. Win or lose, a struggle would be nice.

If you can't interact with it, then is it really relevant? It is the sort of thing that some people feel like their characters should care about, and have the resources to do something about, and can't affect it because it's basically decorative fluff with no in-game representation. It's basically like playing cops and robbers and yelling "I shot you" - "No you didn't" - not really satisfying to every type of player.

It seems to me that the combination of having a character who can and should do something about it, but having no way to do anything, is what gets people upset.

Ulf here pretty much nailed it right square on the head. While of course there's the OoC approach of going at the issue OoC and writing up the whole story OoC, that's really not something everyone'll cotton to. To me, that's not even RP as much as just writing fanfics.

The stuff is now on the IGS as 'troof' and while I have several characters that would have acted and quite severely so, upon such a venture, there's just no way to actually do it. The IGS stuff sets the precedence that capsuleers can spend their money on planetside stuff like such an encampment, but you can't just go "Yeah, I used a couple of billion of my own ISK to send saboteurs in to firebomb the whole damn thing through some method or other." or taking personal action. Hell, you can't even influence the political climate or public opinion on the matter. (Planetbound public opinion that is). There's no violent or non-violent approaches towards this, for characters that otherwise would and should be capable of these things.

So, I guess there's two imbalances. One is the factional imbalance, but the other lies in the "first come, first served" camp. Hell, if I did the same thing first, then I could claim any attempts to dislodge it to be godmoding or whatever. It's a little frustrating to have the motivation, the reasons, the means and the determination for doing something about this... and yet have no way to do it without it being just one big OoC fest where it's written out at the initial beginner's whims.

Again, this isn't primarly about Bloodbird's venture here. It's just used as an example.

[Lyn Farel]

As I said above I agree on the fact that when you do such a thing, you have to accept that other players of the opposite faction will try to do something to counter it, or whatever. It is purely logical, and in this very case here, it would perfectly make sense to see some minmatar locals protesting against that, rioting around, or other troubles around or inside. Or maybe more : an attack of the bloody hand of matar or whatever. This has to be discussed with the player that has settled the idea in the first place.

But I disagree on this though : you can't forbid someone to have a little imagination and make some valuable RP that makes perfect sense. It would have been a minmatar enslaving camp or the godmoding stuff you mentionned, I would have been the first to say it is just ridiculous. But for posts like that I personnally find very immersive, I find it very harsh to react like that, especially as they do not even cause any harm on your own faction. They just broaden the amarrian spectrum of individuals. Though as I said, talk with the player. He has to understand that some radicals will naturally want to burn it down, a bit like they did with Jarek church.

Like Kaleigh said

If they can say they did something on a planet that cannot really be contested, you can create anything to counter it, so long as they don't have any direct interaction. For instance: saying you burnt down their settlement is god-moding; saying you're scaring off potentials with thugs and surveilance is not, because the 'quantity' established is ambiguous.

My question is more : would have you said the same thing if say, the player did that on the ammatar/minmatar border zone ? I don't think so, which might prove my point on the fact it just annoys you because its in the Republic. Well, I suppose it is a difference of points of views concerning RP anyway. I don't consider RP as a struggle between player but as a tapestry of some kind that we are all elaborating together.


Edit : well anyway, no wonder why everyone is like that on the IGS, the goal of most people always seems to be "PUNCH HIM DOWN, PUNCH HIM DOWN". I can understand that from radicals of course, but it always sounds like a testosterone contest.

[Rodj Blake]

I'm pretty much of the opinion that if it didn't happen in-game or in the PF, then it didn't happen at all.

[Matariki Rain]

I seem to be having a day of agreeing with Amarrians. This is troubling.

Let me see if I can frame this in ways that meet the moderation standards.

Yes, you can agree to build a fictional sandcastle and then have someone else protest it or knock it down. I think that's more like collaborative fiction than RP, though. Unless it's someone else doing it really well so I can't tell that that's what they're doing I tend to find it irritating for the reasons others have given earlier in this thread.

I offer for discussion the proposition that -- like PvP -- macro-RP in EVE is non-consensual. You can do whatever you can think of to do: a combination of the game system and the success of your RP in convincing others to act will determine whether you succeed.

I strongly prefer it if RP that's about things-that-'really'-happen is built around things that I can really interact with, even in ways the originators didn't intend. So if there's a presence somewhere, sneak in and pitch a tower that I can scout out, watch, maybe plan to take down. If you say you're going to Goinard or M-M for a drink, fly there so I can, er, "interact" with you on the route. (I, personally, dislike the use of Interbus as a public taxi service because it denies this interactibility, but I do use holo and VR.)

People on IGS saying they're doing something and that NPC people are reacting to it in certain ways contribute to my avoidance of that forum. (This might not be seen as a great loss. ) I'll do my shared story-telling in less-public venues, and not claim it affects the cluster beyond the group of people involved.

Which brings me to a point Julianus raised. In a post I mostly agreed with, he began with a statement that I quibble with:

In the end, roleplay is a performance art. It isn't really done for the benefit of the other person you're rp'ing with, unless the rp really is limited on that scale. It's for the benefit of the larger audience, the community, people who read the forums, etc.

My roleplay is to benefit me and the circles of people I play with. If others enjoy the parts of it they see that's fine, but I only rarely do something intending it as public entertainment. "The forums" are almost incidental to my roleplay. The main exception would be that I love world-building and will happily cast my net wide when looking for people to develop societies and detail groups, places and practices.

[Julianus Soter]

Ah, but see Matariki, you keep your 'audience' very small, confined to you and your friends. If you didn't believe the roleplay was for the benefit of those other than yourself, then your character needn't communicate with anyone, talk with anyone, and you wouldn't make an effort to participate in greater world-building excercises. You could merrily construct such concepts in an introverted manner, hoarding the results of your efforts like a pile of dragon's gold.

But the real wonders of RP, and where personal enjoyment is derived from it, for most people anyway, comes from sharing that treasure and effort with other people. Having other actors in the cast, breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the larger audience, that's what makes RP fun.

[Jade Constantine]

Interesting topic. My gut reaction was to agree with Mizhara. But reading the response from Bloodbird/Jesmine about his openness to allow narrative involvement/messing with - his plotline (+in space wars with his corp) is intriguing.

Quick question to Blood/Jesmine ...

If SF wardecced your outfit for 24 hours and brought a bunch of industrials + escort to the planet and established some PI settlements and maintained a couple of hours of space superiority would you be prepared to write-in the establishment of a well-armed anarchist cell in your city that was going to start agitating for the overthrow of your Amarrian ruling class?