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[Rao Kappa]

So, I thought I'd start off my tour on your forums with the can of worms known as metagaming.

Now, being new to the RP scene in EvE, I'm curious as to what qualifies as 'metagaming' in a game when the meta aspect of it is such a sometimes integral part of the process?

How much could one possibly know about another they've never met right off the bat? Due to the technology, would they know names, corp history, pilot's license length, such things that would, in some other games, qualify as metagaming without RP'ing a proper setup to the acuiring of the info.

Already, I may have bumped into a few situations where metagmaing was present from one point of view, but not correct in the assumption in regards to EvE.

So, as I'm trying to find my footing in the game, please, tell me what you consider 'metagmaing?'

Thanks for your help.

Rao

[Seriphyn]

Eh, the EVE RP community has always struggled with a coherent consensus. Why not provide an example that you might think is dubious?

[Ember Vykos]

 Due to the technology, would they know names, corp history, pilot's license length, such things that would, in some other games, qualify as metagaming without RP'ing a proper setup to the acuiring of the info.

Yes, yes, and yes. Most players will know whatever they can find out about you by doing a show info on your character. So corp history and anything in the public bio(if you filled it out with character info) would probably be easily available, and usually treated as IC information.

[Kemekk]

Depending on the channel, I think it is sometimes appropriate to know the names (and if you want it, personal information) of other pilots. For channels where players are located in a physical place, things should obviously be different.

[Victoria Stecker]

As said earlier, any information available when you hit 'show info' on a pilot is considered fair game as long as you're in a position where you can look it up. For example, in a comms channel, it makes sense that your character would know all of that just moments after meeting someone. On the other hand, if you're having coffee and have just met someone, unless you do something to make note of looking up that info (glancing at a datapad, having an implant interface with galnet), you wouldn't know.

In general, given the much more greivous example of metagaming that we face in EVE RP, something like that is fairly mild and usually overlooked.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Where I start to see fuzzier is when two pilots walk into a channel representing a physical place, and look at each other without either introducing each other.

Can we (IC, not ingame) take an image of a capsuleer's face and query an image database to find a match? How quickly would this come back? Given the limitations on the character creator, would there be potential for a false positive?

While the above situation is theoretical, here's one I actually did run into: Esna walks into a bar, and someone introduces themself to him using their last name. Later, Esna decides he's curious about them - he decides to look them up. Now, given that the ingame character search function in People and Places will not give me that particular character based on last name alone, could we say that there exists an ingame CONCORD database which Esna could use to look up the name, then examine all the profiles until he finds the one he thinks he met?


Personally, I lean towards a "yes" on the latter case more so than on the former.

[Shalee Lianne]

I kind of don't like it when people automatically know these things when meeting face to face.  It takes a lot of the mystery out of those first few moments of conversation.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

Sometimes, public info is a good lead-in for conversation. If the person has been in the news lately, or their corporation has a reputation, these can be great ways to build dialogue, but personally I enjoy learning about people from talking rather than show info or pilot profiles.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

I've always assumed that anything you can acquire from in-game character info (i.e.: "Show Info" on the character) is immediately available to anyone. We're plugged in people, so there's no reason to assume that we're not "seeing" an augmented reality that includes this sort of information.

As far as two people walking into a room and knowing who each other is, that's not too far off, either. Considering our optic nerves being wired up to accept sensory information from our spaceships, I'd imagine we'd "see" things similarly to the way our players see them in MMOs like EQ2 - when I look at Graelyn, I might see floating text with his name, that sort of thing.

Going further, I've also always assumed that anything you can find on the internet related to a character (excepting, of course, obviously non-public information like private diary blogs) is also available to anyone who takes the time to research someone.

[Chowda]

There's some information I won't share if I find it on a forum like this or one I probably shouldn't have access to, as I consider it metagaming.  It's not that I take a firm stand against metagaming, it's more along the lines I'd have to consider throttling myself if I ever took EVE so seriously as to use meta information to my advantage on a regular basis.  So by practice, I will not do it.

However, my industrial activities do overlap with some areas I engage in other activities.  Passive intelligence gathered while I haul and do PI, things I could see winding up on an opsec report, I'll gladly share with a corp I am in.  The character I play would have access to low level confidential material such as that, so I use it in my gameplay.  It's a bit of metagaming, but a far cry from active spying.

EDIT:  But to add to this area of metagaming in the OP, I side with anything you can gather in-game if fair knowledge and not metagaming.  As far as the internet, I refer to information I learn there as either stuff I should ignore or unverified intel unless it is an in-character site.  Cyberstalking is bad.

[Laerise [PIE]]

Since the introduction of CQ Torfi has been pretty about the idea that our "capsuleer interface" (aka the side- and stationbar) are useable even when out of pod.

[Myrhial Arkenath]

Since the introduction of CQ Torfi has been pretty about the idea that our "capsuleer interface" (aka the side- and stationbar) are useable even when out of pod.

Glad this is how it is, I've always thought it to be like that. I'm wondering about the specifics of it though, do we carry a datapad with us everywhere (see lots of people, including myself, use this) or would it go straight through our implants? I'm actually thinking the latter may be more the reality. I don't think the former is bad RP per se though.

As for people who ask, I assume they are just too lazy, or like to socialize the old-fashioned way.

[Mitara Newelle]

Since the introduction of CQ Torfi has been pretty about the idea that our "capsuleer interface" (aka the side- and stationbar) are useable even when out of pod.

Glad this is how it is, I've always thought it to be like that. I'm wondering about the specifics of it though, do we carry a datapad with us everywhere (see lots of people, including myself, use this) or would it go straight through our implants? I'm actually thinking the latter may be more the reality. I don't think the former is bad RP per se though.

As for people who ask, I assume they are just too lazy, or like to socialize the old-fashioned way.

I'm guilty of the datapad crutch most of the time, but I imagine it's available via our implants.

[Chowda]

I'm guilty of the datapad crutch most of the time, but I imagine it's available via our implants.

You may want signal isolation from your implants for either safety or security.

[Casiella]

I just assume that the implants have at least limited wireless ability. If we don't have Space WiFi, then I don't know why I'd even want to live there.