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[Casiella]

I've been thinking about some parts of this ever since Istvaan and a few others commented in response to my recent musings about Casiella.

Pod pilots, at least past the beginning of their careers where CCP does everything possible to push them into mission running or FW, should[1] eventually develop their own allegiances to their own goals. That is, thinking bigger than limiting themselves to what the baseliner nations want. In this sense, they will see CONCORD at best as a way for everyone to maintain a reasonably level playing field (the true game mechanical function) and at worst as intolerable interference by the antiquated powers-that-be.

Then again, I've always seen the lore about insane capsuleers as partly a way to explain, well, gamers. I mean, we do some wacky shit. Seen from the perspective of a normal human in the world of EVE, the Jita riots last year came down to CONCORD not developing tech fast enough and fashion prices being out of whack. I don't actually mean to trivialize the problems with CCP, but ICly we look like the sorts of demigods that wake Cthulhu from his slumber to bitchslap us for giving the word "god" a bad name.

So how do we go about balancing all this, outside of the few characters who choose to be the exceptions that focus on developing dance routines or working directly for The Man^tm? I'd submit a few ideas, at least the ones I already plan to incorporate:

• Don't worry so much about the major factions. They make sense for new pilots who haven't yet realized the lack of limits on their power, but "we" should move past that.
• CONCORD should be a bigger deal to pilots, whether as a tool or an obstacle or something on that spectrum.
• Interpersonal RP shouldn't be such a focus. I personally get annoyed when The Summit focuses on "hi honey how was your day" and "did you see who she was kissing?" rather than, well, The Big Issues. War, science, trade, etc.

That's just a start but reflects some themes I plan to develop more starting very soon.

[1]: "Should" in the senses of "most of the time" and "in my opinion". There are exceptions, and I don't mean this in a "urdoinitrong" sense.

[Silas Vitalia]

We are supermen. We are gods. We are engines of annihilation. Our insecurities translate directly into torpedo launches; our fears detonate doomsday devices. Start bloody acting like it, I say

Plenty of us feel this way, and you have made excellent points.

[BloodBird]

If only you knew what my main toon's been doing for the last few years.

If only I'd get around to getting it on paper and eventually onto the more public places...

I'll get around to posting more in line with the topic at a later time.

[Graelyn]

Hmm.

[Lyn Farel]

• Don't worry so much about the major factions. They make sense for new pilots who haven't yet realized the lack of limits on their power, but "we" should move past that.
• CONCORD should be a bigger deal to pilots, whether as a tool or an obstacle or something on that spectrum.
• Interpersonal RP shouldn't be such a focus. I personally get annoyed when The Summit focuses on "hi honey how was your day" and "did you see who she was kissing?" rather than, well, The Big Issues. War, science, trade, etc.

1) Well, I am not sure that I would really like to see everyone drops his faction. Factions are a big source of RP conflict, and what the point to make them so dense and deep in the lore if it is for everyone to ignore them ?

2) Maybe. Though I already see a large trend of people that enjoy saying that CONCORD is a big pain in the ass for them or that CONCORD is nothing more than a group of bloated, corrupt, incapable people.

3) Definitly. This is why I always said that I do not really like the Summit myself, but I can understand that a lot of people do and who am I to tell them they are doing it wrong ? This is why instead of trying to force those people out of the summit and then try to resurrect it in another fashion, I would have liked to do it with a proper channel like the NEA or whatever.

[Gessenier]

If capsuleers are to be gods then they are perhaps the most nihilistic, destructive, violent, ruthless, selfish and cynical deities known to man. This poses fundamental issues if your character is anything close to approximating a rational or sane human being and if your favoured form of RP is close interpersonal interactions with others.

Some days I find there is an irony in that the, "Non-RP'ers" seem more able to accurately reflect the concept of capsuleers as being absolutely badass motherfuckers, who are ruthless, capricious, and only in it for themselves and those they consider their associates as they treat human life as just another commodity no different to their weapons systems or vessels. Where they grease the machinations of New Eden's War Economy with the blood of their fellow man in acts of terrible violence and atrocity in the name of power and profit and so that the gears of supply and demand in the armaments industry keep on turning as relentlessly as the body counts keep rising.

Personally, with Mjalnar anyway, I've found trying to explore the psychological effects and impacts of violence and killing as a capsuleer and the brutalization of the spirit that occurs during war and conflict just as rewarding elements of character development and progression as any factional introspection.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Bit of an IC spoiler here, but it's highly relevant:

Esna knows a part of him loves fighting wars - not for the cause, not for some greater good, but simply because wars and the battles that define them are (for him) the last great thrill in the universe.

It scares the fuck out of the remaining reasonable human in him.



With respect to the greater arguement, I think this heavily ties into the various arguements about the acceptibility of unchecked claims, of which there have been numerous rehashes on this forum and which I won't delve into now. The point, however, is that it seems to me that in recent years there has been an increasing tendency to respond to claims of non-gameplay RP actions with the IC equivalent of "pics or GTFO".

This is not something entirely bad. Certainly there have been numerous claims that I felt needed to have their silliness pointed out, and "...proof plx?" simply provided the best mechanism to point this out.

Contrasting this with the increasing ability of certain player blocs - I'm thinking of the nullsec coalitions here, but they're certainly not the only ones - to actually influence the entire EVE cluster on a whim, acting as if one is badass without proof increasingly makes you look like a fool to the actual badasses, whoever they may be.

[Lyn Farel]

There is also the psychos that seem to disgust the majority of people and get almost ostracized for what they do. Remember when Vea cut a slave's throat and wanted to obliterate Pator ?

[Merdaneth]

We are supermen. We are gods. We are engines of annihilation. Our insecurities translate directly into torpedo launches; our fears detonate doomsday devices. Start bloody acting like it, I say

You are ejected out into space at the start of your capsuleer career. You feel wide-eyed and unprepared in your puny vessel and an amount of isk on your bank account which is rather laughable. When you ask an agent for an assignment to earn some isk, you are often ridiculed and talked down to. Other capsuleers either ignore you or treat you with tender sympathy for all your ignorance.

You soon discover that your supposed ascendance to capsuleerhood doesn't free you from doing menial jobs. Mining is an activity learned so easily and with so little challenge, you feel even the mentally challenged kid of your neighbour could succeed at. Still, apparently the law doesn't allow such activity to be automated at all. The major trading activity involves continuously updating your orders, also known as 0.1 isking. The logistics sector suffers from a poorly programmed autopilot which means that for efficient transport you have to repeatedly click one button every minute or so. Research and industry also involves a lot of micromanagement, your staff being completely unable to work until resources are depleted and need constant supervision.

As you learn the ropes you soon discover that Concord rule the spacelanes in high-sec like Gods. They can apparently follow you everywhere, have the technology to break laws you are bound to, like warping right into deadspace, having system-wide cloak jammers, and no amount of speed or tank you can muster will deter them for more than a few seconds. It becomes obvious that to Concord you are less than an ant, someone to be squashed at will if you break their draconic rules. Superior technology prevents you from even locking stations, and many objects you can lock seem completely impervious to your mighty weapons.

You soon learn that the so-called nullsec alliances are in the grip of Concord as well, 'paying' for the ability to claim sovereignity in supposedly unclaimed space. Miss the payment and cynojammers will suddenly start to fail no matter how large the capital fleets you can muster are.

Oh, you hear that Concord's technology is inferior next to that of a rarely seen God-like race called the Jovians, making you feel even more insignificant.

The so-called baseliners you are supposed to lord over are never seen anymore, largely shut off from contact with them as you are. Almost nobody ever grovels of debases himself in front of you, although there are plenty of capsuleers standing in line willing to take you down a notch or two. All your grand actions, your destruction of thousands of pirate ships never seems to have much impact, in fact, most people either don't notice or if they do, don't care about it.

---

You and I don't feel Godlike because we can kick over an anthill, we feel Godlike if we are the supreme powers around, and we are much more powerful than the next contender. Tens of thousands of equals diminishes one's God-like feeling, tens of thousands of superior beings totally annihilate one's God like feeling. Feeling God-like is not an absolute notion, it is a relative one (the Hulk pointed this out to Loki in the recent Avengers).

EVE lore might try to make us out as Gods, but EVE gameplay tends to make most people feel anything but Gods but more like insignificant nothings, small cogs in a great machine ruled by others.

[Merdaneth]

One, I do agree there are a lot of RP problems and roles that come off as trite in EVE RP.  Granted, "Im not allowed at so-and-so's dinner party!" seems kind of silly, but such trivial things can matter at the highest levels of power.

Well, it seems to me that guys and gals like say, the Greek Gods, were precisely doing this. Being concerned about dinner parties and the like.

[Merdaneth]

Now imagine 300,000 of them, interacting, plotting against one another.

Matter of perspective. To bacteria we might be considered positively Godlike IRL. However, nobody ever sees or cares about their perspective, and from our own perspective we are simply petty squabbling mortals.

To feel properly Godlike we need a good frame of reference, and EVE doesn't give us that.

[hellgremlin]

Good points Merdaneth, an alternate view I hadn't considered. I never really approached this game as a tiny person when playing Istvaan, it was always king and kingmaker. I suppose CONCORD could certainly intimidate one, up to a point - that point being you learning that a 50m Tornado can be used to pop a T2 indy carrying 20 billion in loot. A new player might feel quite lost in a sea of veterans, supervised by CONCORD, but if you give me that new player, I can turn him into an apex predator with a bit of advice and a few months' training time, able to operate in the heart of protected territory and laugh at the inconsequential penalties imposed by the Instawarp Cops. Said hypothetical new player wouldn't waste his time with mining or missions or any other mind-numbing tedium but jump straight to preying upon more advanced players and taking their shit through violence.

[Bastian Valoron]

Good points Merdaneth, an alternate view I hadn't considered. I never really approached this game as a tiny person when playing Istvaan, it was always king and kingmaker. I suppose CONCORD could certainly intimidate one, up to a point - that point being you learning that a 50m Tornado can be used to pop a T2 indy carrying 20 billion in loot. A new player might feel quite lost in a sea of veterans, supervised by CONCORD, but if you give me that new player, I can turn him into an apex predator with a bit of advice and a few months' training time, able to operate in the heart of protected territory and laugh at the inconsequential penalties imposed by the Instawarp Cops. Said hypothetical new player wouldn't waste his time with mining or missions or any other mind-numbing tedium but jump straight to preying upon more advanced players and taking their shit through violence.

I agree with many of your points. Would be interesting to see a shift towards grand narratives and strong characters but without means to justify your position, and even then, I don't see people accepting it.

It's also tough to try to encourage newbies to focus on areas of game play which have a higher impact on other players. What do you do when they lose their fourth Tornado, without making any ISK?

[Casiella]

Buy Catalysts or Thrashers and gank exhumers

[hellgremlin]

I agree with many of your points. Would be interesting to see a shift towards grand narratives and strong characters but without means to justify your position, and even then, I don't see people accepting it.

It's also tough to try to encourage newbies to focus on areas of game play which have a higher impact on other players. What do you do when they lose their fourth Tornado, without making any ISK?

Smack them and tell them to pick their targets better.

Back in the pre-alpha, my own Endless Corporation engaged in a war with Taggart Trans Inc. Neither of us had seen the client yet. We had our war through RP posts on the forums, illustrated battle reports, etc. When someone went "pix or stfu" they got pix. Admittedly said pix were photoshop cutout collages harvested from CCP promotional material, but the war was real to most of the folks posting in those earliest of days.

Another mostly-RP war happened between EC and Das Paragon (or the Daas.) The war had a chronology that went something like this:

- The Daas are approached by a mysterious 3rd party that alerts them to Endless Corporation's strange gate experiments.
- Endless Corporation is building "stargates to nowhere" whose properties match those described by an ancient Daas space explorer, lost centuries ago.
- The Daas become aware that Endless Corporation is a Caldari front producing bioweapons and high-end slave tech for the Amarr, represented by Sabaoth Inc, which receives regular shipments of superVitoc (Vitoc but super) and Desol-8-ION, a powerful bioweapon. It is also run by an elite of former nobodies who are suddenly rubbing shoulders with generals and senators. In addition, Endless employs slave labor provided by the Amarr. Endless Corporation becomes aware of the Daas meddling.
- Das Paragon begins attacks on EC shipping. EC retaliates by attacking the Daas facility that produces Slurbegone, a famed detoxification/anti-hangover agent that accounts for a large chunk of their economy. The attack is made up of a handful of elite EC commandos accompanied by a mob of drugged-into-stupor slaves used as a human wave assault.
- The Daas discover a shipyard where EC is having a subcontractor named Hosokawa Inc. build cruisers that can deploy bioweapons against a planetary target, and race to destroy it. They notice that while they managed to destroy the shipyards, two of the cruiser berths are empty.
- Meanwhile, Endless Corporation, whose entire upper echelon is by now under the direction of "strange voices heard not in the ear, but the mind" continues to build bizarre stargates to nowhere, including a giant version in the Heaven constellation, next to a heavily armed starbase.
- The mysterious 3rd party from the beginning alerts the Daas to the Heaven installation, and they receive distress calls from their centuries-lost explorer. The Daas assemble their greatest fleet ever, pulling defensive units away from their homeworld, Daasa, to reinforce it.
- Das Paragon arrives in Heaven in major force, to find a stargate containing a wormhole, and EC ships trying to wrench something free of the hole with tethers. Humongous Into-The-Fire-esque fleet battle ensues, containing highlights such as minefields, and a suicide-badger loaded with explosives ramming a Das Paragon titan. The Daas succeed in rescuing their long-lost scientist from EC's clutches, who in his dying breaths reveals that he has found a place inhabited by people "like Jove... but dark." The scientist also reveals that these "Dark Jovians" are in full control of EC, using them as puppets to enact some bizarre alien plot.
- The Daas pay a horrible price for their newfound knowledge. The two EC bioweapon ships are detected descending into the atmosphere of Daasa. The fleet overheats their drives to return home, but by the time they do, the EC cruisers have poisoned Daasa. (This is the deployment of bioweapons I refer to in my CONCORD fact sheet, by the way.)

This was all in pre-alpha/beta. It happened via dozens of illustrated forum posts, a written saga spanning dozens of pages, and talked about strange dark Jovians who live in wormholes YEARS before we heard the term "Sleepers." We didn't bother to strictly adhere to PF, and I dare say we ended up creating some instead. Modern day's tendency for people to go "pix or stfu" and require in-game proof for actions committed is suffocating the hell out of the RP community, because RPers are not often movers and shakers. Good RP shouldn't exclusively require a list of in-game achievements to back it up.