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[Louella Dougans]

sometimes, there's a thing, on the IGS or other places, where a person will do something, and another person will say IC why didn't they do something else, and cite something like a game mechanic, or obscure item.

example, one time, there was a thing with an exchange of prisoners for freed slaves, and the people involved used the "Slaves" ingame item, but at the time, one of them was unaware that more suitable items existed, (kidnapped civilians, Prisoners, refugees, whatever).

unfortunately, many of the items that would be suitable for such rp activities, are mission items, and as such not easy to get a hold of, (or keep hold of), so obtaining items in order to conduct those rp activities, is very hard. Some are very expensive to obtain from contracts, e.g. objects that are ~100m each.

So, what do you do when there's someone using an ingame item, and a more suitable thing exists ? do you challenge them about it, thus possibly embarrassing them about their knowledge of obscure ingame items ? do you play along with their idea that object X is actually object Y ?

to me, it can seem a bit immersion breaking, to comment that since the objects were Y, instead of X, then character A is being deceitful about things. It seems a bit using the game mechanics to say someone is wrong, without necessarily much IC evidence to do so.

Is it reasonable to expect a player to spend much of their ingame time/funds to obtain items just to avoid such comments? does it add anything to enjoyment of rp ?

?

[Desiderya]

Talk it out oocly. And I assume that using the item slaves instead of the item freed slaves wouldn't make too much difference, as long as the intention is clear from the start.
Aside from that, some ingame mechanics would almost certainly have to be used as 'facts', such as inability to ram ships into other things, destroying npc stations, flying into a planet or targeting civilian space travel. Short version: Everything we have on our interface and can interact with from the capsule is chosen and influenced by CONCORD, and there's hardly a way around it.

Also, I don't think that I'm keeping one unit of VIP hostage since 2005 in RP terms.

[Lyn Farel]

Slaves for freed slaves (and vice versa), sure, definitly.

Blue pill for Kameiras, not cool. 

[lallara zhuul]

RP and using game mechanics to create the worldview of New Eden is quite of an issue.

Basically if you adopt the black and white worldview about the user interface then, I think, you should apply it in every way possible, not just when it suits you.

It would mean you would have nothing planet side, nothing station side, no contact with baseliners, your world would consist of nothing but the things you can affect through the UI.

It is an interesting handicap and it also eliminates most of the Mary Sueisms that the RP in EVE entails.

Personally, I like it.

Also there is the thing with the in game items is that some of them are not even accessible unless you have enough standings to do certain missions, so some hand waving should be kosher.

[Desiderya]

It would mean you would have nothing planet side, nothing station side, no contact with baseliners, your world would consist of nothing but the things you can affect through the UI.

I'd disagree. The interface is coming from the capsule. I had that discussion once with someone claiming that CONCORD would be totally in trouble if all capsuleers would come to Yulai and shoot their stuff. In that case I still think that the safeguards of the capsule  - our interface - doesn't allow pointing our guns at a station, or in another case, flying a battleship into a planet.

CONCORD is totally keeping us down, man. 

[tarunik]

This problem pops up in other spots as well, such as "are damage notifications/reinforcement timers/... IC?" which are open questions if you ask me.

[Silas Vitalia]

I think if you can afford it then you should spring for the closest items as a stand-in.  If you work it out substitutes ooc that's probably just fine, more about the 'spirit' than the items, yes?

As was said. 'slaves' for 'freed slaves' ok.  'blue pill' for 'vips' probably not.

I'm more of a stickler for that kind of thing since the costs are prohibitive enough to make you mean it. Small shipments of small arms, vaccines, etc, are quite affordable.

Big shipments of lots of items cost a lot, and are reflected.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I'm extremely hesitent about trying to enforce "standards" of any kind to item-involving RP, with a few exceptions (exotic or rare items, etc).

[Kazzzi]

Social RP based on a spaceship flying game's mechanics?

IMO RP should never be limited by game mechanics. I like it when the mechanics promote RP though.

RP should only be limited by the storyline and some of that common sense stuff.

I don't see the harm in substituting a cheaper item for something else, unless the item is supposed to be rare/expensive for your RP. Like what Esna said.  I also don't see the harm in not using any ingame item at all, it's always cool when you find one that fits though.

If I were to call someone out for using an improper item, I would try to make sure I wasn't being OOC petty, unless of course Kazzzi was blatantly and obviously trying to be petty.

[Mizhara]

If you can't afford the time/resources/isk required to get a certain amount of an item... your character can't afford the time/resources/isk required to get a certain amount of an item. If it exists, use the item in question. "The next best thing" just means you're pulling things out of your ass instead of RPing according to the resources, time and availability that's quite apparently right there in your wallet and assets window.

Of course, if you and the other guy work things out OOC, it's between you guys. There's no law saying you can't trade tritanium for slaves for instance, if that's how you and the other guy roll. If you haven't worked it out OoC... bring the real shit.

[Ulphus]

If you can't afford the time/resources/isk required to get a certain amount of an item... your character can't afford the time/resources/isk required to get a certain amount of an item.

My character doesn't have to spend 40 hours a week outside the pod at a job to be able to pay for the licence fee. My character can pay other people to do the dishes, cook dinner, tidy the house. My character doesn't have to play skyrim for 20 hours a week.

I think it's a bit unfair to say that if you have limited playtime, your character sits in stasis the entire time you're not online.

[Mizhara]

Then it's unfair for people to have more ISK, better ships and pimped fits in PvP then too, perhaps? I frankly don't see it as unfair. It's just how it is. If someone beats me because they had more ISK and thus better/more/pimped ships I don't get to say "nuh uh, I have less playtime and thus less isk than you. Doesn't count.".

I think it'd be more unfair to devalue the effort people have spent in getting the ISK, the position, time, items and so on required to actually use the real deal when RPing.

[Ulphus]

I think it'd be more unfair to devalue the effort people have spent in getting the ISK, the position, time, items and so on required to actually use the real deal when RPing.

So the people who spend hundreds of millions on NEX clothing are the only ones allowed to have their character dressed in clothes that didn't come from the Eve equivalent of K-mart? And if you're not prepared to spend that, then tough?

I don't believe that. There are game mechanic issues where you have to spend a lot of game time chasing some miniature slaver hound when if the world had some internal consistency not limited by the game mechanics, you could just get your PA to go order one from Pets-In-Space.

I say this as someone who (most of the time) actually flies to the places I say I am. For instance, the last time I went to the Last Gate I was actually in system. It was a pretty empty system. Have I not seen your characters in the Last gate? Were they in Goinard at the time?

I see the comparisons as pretty similar really. I don't demand other people have the same priorities as me. I understand that maybe they're busy doing something else, but want to get some RP in at the same time, and it seems to me that whether you've sourced actual in game "firearms" or are just RPing as if you had makes not much difference. Although I was quite pleased when I ordered some firearms off one of Verone's alts and they actually got delivered to Pator as a contract, the people who were handing out drinks as actual in game items during a social event seemed to be going a bit far.

So yes, spending the time to track down the appropriate in-game item is worthy of praise, but I don't think that not doing so is always doing it wrong.

(edited for speeling)

[Esna Pitoojee]

Barring some incredibly canonically rare items, there are some items which are stupidly rare ingame due to the mechanics of how they interact with the players, but would likely not be rare at all in-universe. Sealed cargo containers easily cost anywhere from as much as a couple of frigates to a few cruisers' worth of ISK. Breeder slaves, which there (rather disturbingly) are likely thousands upon thousands of in the Empire, are 25 million ISK - one person,  worth as much as 7-8 aircraft-carrier-sized warships. MTACs - common mining equipment, according to lore - top out at over 75m.

[Gottii]

Barring some incredibly canonically rare items, there are some items which are stupidly rare ingame due to the mechanics of how they interact with the players, but would likely not be rare at all in-universe. Sealed cargo containers easily cost anywhere from as much as a couple of frigates to a few cruisers' worth of ISK. Breeder slaves, which there (rather disturbingly) are likely thousands upon thousands of in the Empire, are 25 million ISK - one person,  worth as much as 7-8 aircraft-carrier-sized warships. MTACs - common mining equipment, according to lore - top out at over 75m.

I could maybe say that the reason breeder slaves are so expensive for capsuleers is that you have to bribe the right officials to look the other way, to convince the Amarrian clergy to accept your dubious claims youre a Holder, etc.....

the containers....I've got nothing