I started playing EVE the week before Incarna came out. Right as I was starting, wide-eyed in this amazing game people were quitting over the whole "Greed" debacle or railing against the introduction of Avatars and CQ's. For me it was irrelevant, a whole new universe had opened up to me replete with it's own history of both NPC and PC interaction to delve into. It took me awhile to really get into the RP side of things beyond reading about it but from day one I was fascinated by the old stories and the fact that some number of the players from days of yore were still here and active. It has been a source of constant sadness how few of them are truly interacting with the game today and how RP in general has so little effect on the day to day of most of the game.
I think that the older players like yourself are an immeasurably valuable thing for us younger players. Not only do you contain the knowledge of what actually happened in the past you contain within your character histories the gravitas necessary to be our leaders and advisors. You Silas should be the head of a Blooder Alliance reaving through the stars not a two man corp pegged onto some silly named pvp alliance that could give a shit about "lolRP". Esna, you should be part of Mithra's Society or PIE or CVA or find some upstart young Amarr roleplayer with the time you do not have and teach him how to grow and be successful. We should be taking this game back from the mechanistic boring players, not just reacting to them as if they own EVE and it's future. When I think about RP in this game what sticks with me is that quote from the "Good RP Logs" thread where Graelyn recounts his "name". That is fucking awesome. Every once in awhile I go back and read it and think about how someday I too will be able to list my accomplishments.
I get that it is hard sometimes to have the time and put in the effort, like Merdanath was posting the other day. I tried to run my own alliance and create my own little slice but hit the brick wall of RL issues vs Executor/CEO. When it failed I had a choice, join some non-RPers and go farm C5's, make my own little 1-man corp and be sad and lonely or find a Corp that was close enough to what I liked and wanted to do and help them. I went with option number three and other than my steadfast desire to never wear aviator shades it has been a blast. Still don't have a ton of time to play but when I do I get the interaction I desire and contribute how I can to Corp goals. Someday I will have more time and will put any of the dozen of schemes I craft weekly into play.
Don't be discouraged. You are an awesome part of New Eden. I want to read of your exploits for years to come.
The thing is from experience, most players reach their golden age at 1-2 years of age, to 3-4 years. I would say most of them would be between 2-4 years of play. Past that, they usually end up into retirement.
My case for example, even if I have been a rather quiet element I have still left my mark here and there in the universe. I started playing late 2006 (Red Moon Rising -> Revelations), and joined Providence 6 months later only looking for RP, and there was that huge RP conflict for the control of Providence between CVA and UshraKhan. I fortunately picked up the good side and saw the last months of victory. Which was my nullsec era, and it was mostly free from cap warfare since barely a few titans existed ingame and motherhsips were utter shit. And capitals a lot rarer overall. Doctrines were a lot more interesting, with ships of the line formations and support.
Got into Aegis Militia, that was not at its best, and eventually was part of the executorship of the alliance for a bit of time because the core corp AMC totally burned out after yet another internal sabotage. So, I was barely 1 year old, and we had to learn fast, but we did and did a decent job, until my own RP corp that I create with a friend collapsed and we had to retire. I completely suck at recruiting, motivating people, and organizing things. I am a mediocre HR manager when it comes to players, but better at high up decisions.
I then fled into Solitude and got into a gallente loyalist corp fighting against piracy with the goal to make the region safe. Being one of the few with actual pvp experience and more importantly, FC experience (but that was a lot more theoretical than a lot of practice...), I took the lead of most operations against the local pirate alliance (fear alliance) that was 5 times bigger than our corp. We beat them to death since they were surprisingly bad at pvp. The only good corp of that alliance got disgusted of their buddies and they collapsed. I was barely 2 years old in the game, this was in 2008 iirc, and we enjoyed a safe Solitude for a while when the corp decided to stop being RP coherent and fuck up in Syndicate, so I left with OOC drama behind. Low sec era.
That's basically where ended my leadership. After a while you tend to want something more tranquil and less stressful. You don't have the energy anymore to spend into that kind of things. I joined FW even if I was not really interested in it, invited by a RPer that insisted that I came into his corp. I then enjoyed it and created a second attempt at a RP corp. Since I suck at that, it almost worked but collapsed and I joined KotMC, probably the last corp where I spend more than a year as an (almost) founding member doing FW stuff and all, but without any real leadership position. I may have accepted one if offered, but I don't think I really wanted one... FW low sec era.
Then its a few years of retirement.
I have tried most things in Eve, pve missions, wormholes, incursions, exploration sites, epic arcs (3 of them), pvp in low sec, FW and nullsec including blob warfare in CVA/AM wars against Bob and Triumvirate, racing, mining when I began, PI, industry (including tech 2), trading, high sec various RP war decs... Maybe the only thing I havent tried out of RP constraints is pure piracy... There is a time where its seriously feels the same no matter what you do. RP, however, tends a lot less do feel that way, fortunately.
There is also an issue with CCP, that was one of the main griefs roleplayers had against the company back in 2007-2009. We tended to accuse them of constantly keeping players/gameplay completely separate from the NPC universe. We felt that capsuleers were completely disconnected from the world except doing their own vapid stuff in nullsec. Everything when it comes to capsuleers is disconnected, we use our own stargates, own docking pads, we never see any civilian traffic bar a few scarce NPC industrials in stations, but that also translated itself into the way that players were totally kept separate from the lore and the world. We had regular news like it's again the case today (awesome), but we were only able to comment them. There was also a reason for that : Aurora turned into a fucking disaster, and I came into the game just after it happened in 2005-2006.
So roleplayers had still a good weight in the community back in the days and a lot of people were asking for a factional warfare, that only came 3 years later with TEA and that we used to applaud the first months and then totally loathe for what it did to RP. But eventually, the only times where we truly felt we were doing something was when we were awarded the Kourmonen decoration for the Amarr militia when it was liberated (and that I missed -_-), and when the Caldari won the war and had a shiny unique medal in a similar fashion, and where conquered systems were auctioned to all the megas.
Then I realized that introducing political mechanisms ingame means that they will remain that way for a long time, if not forever, since it's gameplay content. We can not get rid of FW, and so, the world can not truly evolve. We can not get rid of incursion mechanisms, so the world is stuck in an endless sansha incursion... If they truly wanted to bring dynamism, they would have made a much more inclusive system where system sovereignty can change and imply a lot more things in the lore, where every faction can war dec the other one depending on circumstances, and where every faction risk radical changes to have a living world. Well, we maybe despised what Heth did to the State lore for example, but that was a change, maybe badly executed, maybe of poor form, but it was a change. I for one also like the black eagle / Roden change in the Federation, since it shows that the faction can evolve. Same for Jamyl, even if I loathe the character. And same for Shakor, even if he is truly killing the republic and looking like an idiot in the process (much like Heth).
The problem is that a lot of roleplayers will cry to death when their beloved faction is harmed. Sometimes with reason because it's silly or just cheesy, but more generally, people will behave like good little frenchmen and complain for everything happening to their faction. Change is good. But due to that aspect, most people and CCP for other reasons are not really willing to mess with that unchanging lore tapestry like they tried to do in TEA considering the fuss it created. TEA is to the lore a little like what Incarna was to gameplay. A good idea and a wonderful concept that got so badly implemented that it created an uproar. Hell, they could very well make the Amarr drop slavery all together for what it's worth. After all they more or less solved the Caldari Prime issue, which makes the Caldari and Gallente almost without an incentive to fight... They could very well play on those incentives, solving some, bringing different ones... The catch is not to disfigure a faction too much, even if it can be awesome... It's like playing with a hand grenade.
I think I ranted enough... Didnt know I had so much to say...
NB : and yes as BB said above, a lot of things have changed community wise, and not just in the roleplaying one. CCP perverted ethics over years (MonocleGate, SommerBlink, always more alts, deleterious atmosphere with the enforcement of goonlike mentality, trash people as much as you could, etc.
