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[lallara zhuul]

With the (re)rise of Jamyl, the question rises, can we really affect the storyline at all?

Basically the most meaningful player interaction with the game world was retconned into oblivion by CCP when they introduced the concept of Emperor Jamyl. Pretty much everything that the Amarrians had done with Doriam and his more peaceful initiatives on diplomacy towards other empires was all wiped away when Jamyl came back from the dead and took the throne, just like CCP had planned to happen oh-so-many years ago.

... pretty much every live event that has been taken part in has had a predetermined outcome.

Not two, or three, but just one.

PIE escorting Brother Joshua and SF trying to catch the freighter, could they have stopped the ship even if they would have reached the gate in time.
Admiral Graelyn remote repairing a military officer that does not go down, the officer deletes himself from the grid.

Just about every interaction with a live event has meant exactly one thing, you could talk to a NPC in real time. Nothing else. Maybe blow up their ship, but even that would not affect the storyline.

Meh.

[Milo Caman]

With the (re)rise of Jamyl, the question rises, can we really affect the storyline at all?

Nope.

Anyone remember those invincible supercarriers during the live events? It's CCP, what do you expect? :bittervet:

[Bacchanalian]

PIE escorting Brother Joshua and SF trying to catch the freighter, could they have stopped the ship even if they would have reached the gate in time.

Considering we had someone sitting on all of the possible gates and never saw any of PIE or BJ, I doubt it. 

[Vieve]

I'm not Soter, but I'll answer for myself.

There is no problem with this. Currently I'm not in a very RP-intense corp, so my power, though co-founder, is limited to more... practical, things. However, if I had a say, then for instance, Vieve, or Nikita, or any other toon that has abandoned faction X and joined with faction Y, and possibly even ditched them again for Z, would be barred from entry. They would in fact be told to go fuck themselves, in no mild manners.

Yay!  Someone who actually agrees with me about this.


Seriously, I've had to make up a lot of the repercussions for Vieve (and by extension, Celeste and Sabi) because well, damn, her and their choices should have had them.

[Merdaneth]

Our capacity to impact the backstory remains the same as ever, I believe. The Live events allow for a significant particiaption of players with ongoing storyline arcs, vis-a-vis actor interactions and completion of various objectives, making a lasting, prime fiction, impact.

I agree, or capacity to impact the backstory only exists in these very rare Live Events, which leaves us at the mercy at a largely non-present CCP to determine when and if we can affect the backstory. If I'm not online during a live event, my odds to affect the backstory are close to nil. Regardless of the points brought up by others who have doubts if storyline developments are predetermined by CCP or not.

The faction war arcs are largely tied up, with the Blind Auction being undone by the liberation of Placid/Verge/Essence, which I'm proud Moira took a part of back in the day. There wasn't much more going on in the Amarr/Minmatar front, however, occupying a star system on behalf of a faction is still most certainly a significant impact on the backstory of the game.

I don't know, but I don't remember faction war arcs being tied up but rather being abandoned. The occupancy has no impact on the backstory of the game unless CCP decides it has. I haven't got a clue if Arzad is a razed world, if it still has slaves or not, if its cities have been destroyed by numerous occupation switches. The only thing I know is that my planetary factories have continued operating with any noticable interruption due to occupancy changes. Of course I've tried to pretend there was some impact by posting stuff on the IGS or RPing it with others. I admit, its nothing more than just saying there was an effect, since there is no actual Lantorn in game other than an image and some resource stats. But it is what we got.

I

think it is rather presumptuous for us to believe our capsuleers capable of doing, or undoing, thousands of years of human history just over the course of a few days of typing things in the IGS. That is where the lack of perspective lies, I believe. Even with the contiuous efforts of years of certain RP alliances, there is still a long way to go scratch the surface of the storyline in 'real time', meaning, human epochal history.

Soter, I get the distinct feeling that you keep attributing things to me that I neither said nor meant. I do desire to change 'thousand of years of human history', I merely desire that one NPC either talks to me, that my efforts to eradicate the NPC pirates from one system have some effect, or that maybe my mission agent remembers me. When I play a tabletop campaign starting at 1st level, I don't expect earth shattering changes too, but when I save a small village from a group of marauding orcs, it pleases me a lot to see them doing better if I return on year later, and that they still remember me and invite me over for a drink. Small but noticable impact.

The impact of any one person, over such period of time, can be said to be vanishingly small. However, things like faction war, live events, and others, do bring to mind that accomplishments of skill, teamwork, and perseverance will be rewarded by CCP. Acts of a lone wolf attempting to hog the headlines, probably won't.

Once again, I ask you not to attempt to push this debate into extremes. I think trying to cast my arguments into a 'lone wolf hogging headlines' is undeserved and doesn't fit the point I'm trying to make. Safe that kind of stuff for the IGS please. Other than that, I'm not agreeing with you, and neither most names we know from our (and EVE's) history books.

[Julianus Soter]

Perhaps, Merdaneth, I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make. I still can't quite understand what the basis is for the difference of opinion.

On one hand, you acknowledge that live events allow for participation in storylines. These live events, which you claim to be very rare, occurred on a near weekly or biweekly basis for the past year or so, often times, several days on end. Vast quantities of roleplay resulted from these events.

If you wish, I can outline in detail the kinds of live events that occurred, the information that came out of it, and the various other fun CCP was able to introduce.

On the other hand, you claim, at least, I think you do, that because there is no way to participate in the storyline (live events being the immediate and up-front counterexample to this claim), then people are justified in claiming that 'rp has died' and that it is indeed largely CCP's fault.

My primary point was that RP in the domain of the IGS and The Summit, the in-game roleplaying channel, specifically, frightens many roleplayers away and causes these avenues of roleplay to be shunned by the majority of the community (little c, since it's the actual population of roleplayers in the game, vs the 'Community' comprised largely of members on this forum). And that is why 'rp has died', according to the OP of this thread.

The reason for frustration and confusion amongst new roleplayers that have joined this forum is that they don't realize this or understand the reasons behind it. That's why I've attempted to clarify the issue for them, and for the general audience, in my past few posts. If you believed that my posts were direct responses towards your posts, then I apologize, but I'm not attempting to debate you directly. I'm attempting to make the case that these avenues of roleplay should by no means be accepted as the 'primary' or 'only' avenues of roleplay communication in Eve online.

Indeed, that is why I'm not quoting line-by line your responses and countering them directly. I have found that such direct debates and arguments result in little of value. My only objective is pursuing the more general answer to the question: why has public RP quieted down.

[Merdaneth]

Soter, thank you for answering. It seems to me you often appear to exaggerate my points or put them into a much larger context, which often changes the entire point I am trying to make. So, once again (and I'm trying to say exactly what I'm trying to say, no more, no less):

- I am claiming it is difficult to advance storylines that involve non-existent/non-interactable NPC elements without the specific assistance of CCP.
- I am claiming that CCP efforts to to advance the storylines RPers are interested in is relatively small. So small that of lot of storylines stagnate, becoming fixed in a sort of unaffectable status quo.
- I am claiming this stagnation contributes to the general RP stagnation we've see
- I am claiming that if you have a storyline that involves non-existent/non-interactable NPC elements, creating a pretend play that only involves 'talk' (on IGS or otherwise) is a viable RP option
- I am claiming that visibility is a more important factor than 'actions in space' when it comes to RP with such NPC elements, since no one can produce 'proof' of the effects they have on such NPC elements (note that visibility and actions in space are not on the same continuum).

For clarity, I am *not* saying:
- A capsuleer cannot advance storylines
- A capsuleer cannot advance storylines without CCP
- The fact that you cannot influence certain NPC elements in-game makes RP with NPC elements impossible
- The fact that you cannot influence certain NPC elements in-game invalidates efforts to do so
- There has been no advancement of RP storylines with NPC elements

As far as the other point, the famous 'IGS etc. scares newbies' point, I think is by and large due to our own bittervet syndromes as pointed by others. Shooting down the 9000+th variant of the 'I'm an abused Matari slave escaping from my captors and seeking revenge', or slapping new people silly with 'you are going against PF, look at paragraph 7a, section 4 of story such-and-such'

I honestly don't think rehashing old arguments on the IGS is that damaging, as long as it doesn't reek of simmering OOC conflicts. Jade said that she got tired of the umpteenth discussion with Merdaneth about the same issues. But if you are an IGS newbie, and haven't seen the previous 20 threads, it might seem refreshing and new. And the things mentioned might even give an indication this issue is much deeper and has a whole history behind it. A story behind it as it were. That can be intriguing.

Other than that, IGS roleplay can be like PvP, difficult to get in as a lone newbie, and you'll likely get shot down the first dozen of times you try. Improve your fittings, brush up on your skills and try again.

[Arkady Sadik]

Jade said that she got tired of the umpteenth discussion with Merdaneth about the same issues. But if you are an IGS newbie, and haven't seen the previous 20 threads, it might seem refreshing and new.

Just for the record, Jade is not the only one who thinks that the umpteenth repetition of the same arguments is tiring. I do not mind the same topic being discussed, but if the arguments brought up are identical to the last time and the poster apparently completely ignored what others said last time, it turns the possibly interesting story into a broken record. I would not put too much faith in that intriguing new RPers too much.


Edit: Before someone gets me wrong, the above does not refer to "everything Merdaneth says" (by far), and simply being stubborn is also a good trait of an Amarrian, so this works ICly. Just sometimes, I wish some people would ... er ... provide more interactive RP :-P

[Hamish Grayson]

I like your posts.   Don't let Jade dictate what you post.

[Graelyn]

Other than that, IGS roleplay can be like PvP, difficult to get in as a lone newbie, and you'll likely get shot down the first dozen of times you try. Improve your fittings, brush up on your skills and try again.

Quote of the Month. 

[Silver Night]

[mod]There've been borderline posts in this thread, but I'm avoiding modding it for the time being because the brisk pace of discussion has kept a lot of it fairly useful, and I think at this point it would be counterproductive. That being said, I would like to invite everyone to review the rules and FAQ if you haven't recently, to refresh yourself on proper posting behavior.In particular, please remember that regardless of your personal preference there is no wrong way to RP (though noone is under any obligation to RP with someone whose style they don't prefer), and please tread carefully when you decide to use other people as your examples in your discussion.[/mod]

[Verone]

Perhaps, Merdaneth, I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make. I still can't quite understand what the basis is for the difference of opinion.

On one hand, you acknowledge that live events allow for participation in storylines. These live events, which you claim to be very rare, occurred on a near weekly or biweekly basis for the past year or so, often times, several days on end. Vast quantities of roleplay resulted from these events.

If you wish, I can outline in detail the kinds of live events that occurred, the information that came out of it, and the various other fun CCP was able to introduce.

On the other hand, you claim, at least, I think you do, that because there is no way to participate in the storyline (live events being the immediate and up-front counterexample to this claim), then people are justified in claiming that 'rp has died' and that it is indeed largely CCP's fault.

My primary point was that RP in the domain of the IGS and The Summit, the in-game roleplaying channel, specifically, frightens many roleplayers away and causes these avenues of roleplay to be shunned by the majority of the community (little c, since it's the actual population of roleplayers in the game, vs the 'Community' comprised largely of members on this forum). And that is why 'rp has died', according to the OP of this thread.

The reason for frustration and confusion amongst new roleplayers that have joined this forum is that they don't realize this or understand the reasons behind it. That's why I've attempted to clarify the issue for them, and for the general audience, in my past few posts. If you believed that my posts were direct responses towards your posts, then I apologize, but I'm not attempting to debate you directly. I'm attempting to make the case that these avenues of roleplay should by no means be accepted as the 'primary' or 'only' avenues of roleplay communication in Eve online.

Indeed, that is why I'm not quoting line-by line your responses and countering them directly. I have found that such direct debates and arguments result in little of value. My only objective is pursuing the more general answer to the question: why has public RP quieted down.

This, to be honest.

[Merahl]

Speaking from a new RPer's perspective, I've found public RP (hell, any Eve RP, by this point) difficult to start up because frequently someone will enter a quiet channel other than the Summit and there will be no response. I am guilty of not noticing such instances until it was too late and the other person had logged (most recently Nmaro. My apologies, I was afk). On other occasions, people are active in a channel but not interacting with each other.

Silence breeds silence. God forbid we should have to interact with each other again in order to resurrect the RP in-game

I don't think blame can be pinned on CCP. I always figured that the world plot line moves around the players and that we move our own plot lines because we have minimal influence on the world. We can't just wait for the company to throw us another bone to gnaw and fight over; we need to bring our own stories to share, too. The best RP I've had in any MMO has always been as part of player-created events, and it would be great to see more of these in Eve.

[Merdaneth]

Just for the record, Jade is not the only one who thinks that the umpteenth repetition of the same arguments is tiring. I do not mind the same topic being discussed, but if the arguments brought up are identical to the last time and the poster apparently completely ignored what others said last time, it turns the possibly interesting story into a broken record. I would not put too much faith in that intriguing new RPers too much.

I am of a different perspective, simply because I liked (which was maybe a repetition but appear that way to me) the repetitions stuff on the IGS myself. I remember a discussion I had with Rodj when someone from the Matari camp offered to have himself be captured. Rodj advised against it partly because "it had been done many times before". I honestly had never seen a 'capture' event in this manner before, it was a novel idea to me, and seemed interesting.

I still think to this day that just because we 'bittervets' have done things before we shouldn't advise new people against it on the basis of 'we have tried it, it rarely ends well', 'it been done a dozen times before, its not believable' or 'its boring repetition', but instead should motivate (new) people to go on with it, but perhaps provide them with small new twists on the idea to give it a bit of additional freshness.

To me the 'avoiding repitition syndrome' is a bit like saying to a new corp member: "I know we are at war, but we've fought these hostiles 10 times before, they always come out with Falcons and we always load up on ECCM to defeat them. We are tired of repeating the same cycle, just let's stay docked." I can understand that sentiment, but that doesn't mean the eager new recruit feels that way about PvP too. If it's a challenge, I'm game, even if we fought a similar battle 20 times before.

[Arkady Sadik]

I remember a discussion I had with Rodj when someone from the Matari camp offered to have himself be captured. Rodj advised against it partly because "it had been done many times before". I honestly had never seen a 'capture' event in this manner before, it was a novel idea to me, and seemed interesting.

I think we're talking about different kinds of "repetition" - I tried to allude to that by saying that I do not mind the same topic being discussed repeatedly, but I probably failed. Let me see if I can rephrase that.

What gets tiring to me (OOC) is repetition of identical arguments that have been discussed (and sometimes even refuted) repeatedly in the past. Saying exactly the same thing over and over again is different from discussing the same topic over and over again.