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[Vic Van Meter]

Though to be fair, I cannot think of a single MMO that did not see the RP community in that way. It is always a secondary community to be handled, nothing more.

You're tapping here at a big iceberg. If I wasn't so lazy I would write a whole brickwall of text on the subject, but here's the shorthairs:

While I am squarely in the camp of those who desperately want strong story, consequence, and a reactive world that seems real on it's own...you're talking about roleplayers.

Roleplayers are kept at arms length, because while we are by far the most committed and giving types of people in terms of content, as a whole we are also packed to the gills with cringenerds.

Roleplayers Scare Developers.

Here's the tough part to swallow:

It's completely justified.

I have seen more petty snippy manipulative bullshit in one month of Roleplaying (not IC either, purely OOC) than happens in a year of nullsec metagaming. The most depraved and pathetic displays of desperation, usually for nothing more than keeping a certain 'appearance', have come from Roleplayers. Even before taking on the Summit job, before being the Hated Head Referee of the Derplord Championships, the things I've seen RPers do to each other would really bend all senses of credulity.

RPers make enemies like everyone else, because they're playing the same game as everyone else, they meet the same annoying shits who troll and trample your stuff.....but they Hate, I mean truly HATE like no one else. They make enemies for life, and it's often over the most petty and insignificant things you could imagine.

Have you ever heard a LARPer screaming about a rule, crying about unfairness? Ever seen a tabletop RPer throw his dice and rage? It makes you cringe and lessens your respect for anyone in those hobbies, but in an MMO, where the anonymity of the internet and the convenience of a computer game make this the norm? Bad stereotypes become more and more accurate.

Roleplayers take the game too seriously.

Devs, of course, happily march to the hypocrite's drum of pretending they love such a community. They tell us all how they're committed to the same ideals we are, that they want to take the world they've created seriously too.

Then they step off stage, take a relieved breath, and joke with each other about 'those fucking weirdos'.

(1200th post. Good round number.)

Sorry, been hammered all day by a shortened deadline, so the conversation got away from me.  For the previous stuff, I guess I spent too long playing the grey mush game in tabletop.  I've had way too much of Lyn's grimdark than I can handle.  Why doesn't moral ambiguity ever lead to a scenario where people turn decent?  Anyway, maybe the game was a lot different before I arrived.  I've only been in the game since August; people seem to have fonder memories of it before.

On Graelyn's subject, though...

Maybe the bigger problem here is that CCP didn't exactly give themselves a lot of wiggle room in that department.  Even if, going back to the tired example, WoW roleplayers got sick of the way lore was handled, they at least have other lore hanging around that can be completely divorced from the thing they're angry about.  If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do.  The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.

Which was kind of the point in me wishing there was some far-off, forgotten place with a good PVE story where I could get away from the empires and nullsec grind for a while.  We've hammered slavery, invasion, and the same subjects over and over that, if CCP doesn't do drastic stuff much more often, we're essentially revving the engine in neutral.

[Shiki]

You guys are killing it for me.

 

[Jace]

You guys are killing it for me.

 

Don't underestimate the depth and greatness that can come with player created arcs, even if they are just with you and a group of people and don't go all that public. A lot of the frustration you see is bittervet, a long time in the making.

Just do you. Freighters gonna freight. 

[Aldrith Shutaq]

Screw all that, Aldy's happy with his family and trying to nudge the Empire to be nicer over all. Power and important stuff? Ffffbbbbbttttttmeeeeeh.

[Ché Biko]

Don't underestimate the depth and greatness that can come with player created arcs, even if they are just with you and a group of people and don't go all that public. A lot of the frustration you see is bittervet, a long time in the making.

Just do you. Freighters gonna freight. 

QFT. Most of my best times in EVE were caused by what we, the roleplayers created, not what CCP wrote.

[..]now...it's mostly just you people and the occasional race that keeps me subbed.

Current Ché would not exist without you folks (yes, that means you too, unregistered lurker), and I love you for it.

[Gaven Lok ri]

Maybe the bigger problem here is that CCP didn't exactly give themselves a lot of wiggle room in that department.  Even if, going back to the tired example, WoW roleplayers got sick of the way lore was handled, they at least have other lore hanging around that can be completely divorced from the thing they're angry about.  If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do.  The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.

I really really don't think you are giving the lore anywhere near the credit it deserves. There is a ton of material on that Wiki and throughout the game to play off of, and most of it hasn't been touched. Even within the imperial storylines, the nuances are rarely developed fully.

Just because CCPs marketing latches onto Empires and Null, doesn't mean that is all there is.

[V. Gesakaarin]

I tend to have more fun with other "non-roleplayers" who actually play the game for what it is than most "roleplayers" who seem to want it to be about playing United Nations Security Council in space, or some kind of debate club then complain when CCP doesn't provide enough things to write minutes about when the whole point to me is that the content comes from players and not the background.

I don't think most players pay their sub for the luxury of posting on IGS or in-game chat rooms, honestly.

[PracticalTechnicality]

I tend to have more fun with other "non-roleplayers" who actually play the game for what it is than most "roleplayers" who seem to want it to be about playing United Nations Security Council in space, or some kind of debate club then complain when CCP doesn't provide enough things to write minutes about when the whole point to me is that the content comes from players and not the background.

I don't think most players pay their sub for the luxury of posting on IGS or in-game chat rooms, honestly.

Pretty much the same here.  I do enjoy the rp focused venues, but I have always enjoyed reconciling the game features with the 'experience' of being a capsuleer.  Some of the best rp I have taken part in was with Narwhals, where a small group of people enjoyed a bit of story telling to pass time when we'd depleted our wormhole and didn't have viable targets.  Speculation about what might live on the temperate world, when we'd be able to see a properly kitted out station again and war stories from previous employment were all pretty interesting, and some non-role players really got into it (if only for nostalgic ego stroking, but hey, we get a lot of that here too and it isn't always a bad thing). 

The excitement of role play, for me, is the mode of social interaction it presents.  You're an imagined personality talking to another imagined personality about things that ACTUALLY happened in game.  They have weight and credibility despite the imagined nature of the text.  This is another reason why I voted option three - my most exciting rp scenes have been while in, or while interacting with a few individuals in large organisations flung far into the reaches of the eve cluster.  Taking the propaganda, news reports and obnoxious rp of some of those people's peers, and then comparing it with a light hearted talk with a friend about the realities, cuts through a lot of the pretension and pomp while retaining the role play.  These are genuinely interesting people at heart, but their public face requires that they keep up the rippling-muscled Adonis neck beard of outer space image, as the survival of their alliance tends to require an influx of people who buy into that image. 

As ever, private rp > all other rp for me.  You get to know a character and what they really think, if there is a basis of trust.  Drama is low and you can reconcile REAL elements of the game (lol real) with lore and personal rp.  That is what I look for in this game, something that anchors on things that can be changed, built, torn down or preserved, and a self-written story to go along with it. 

[Kopenhagen]

For me, as a few have mentioned, RP is anything that happens in game. I like to kill people more than I like talking about killing people, but, at the same time, I like interacting with others that share our space.

It is all part of the game. For me there is no Empires versus null. It is all just part of one big universe. Because I cannot predict where CCP will go next, I tend not base my RP on things that they might or might not do. This does not mean I ignore it, it is still much part of my game, just not the absolute cornerstone. In the same sense, I do not base my life on what the president of my country might do, I live my life despite what he might do. Yes, sometimes if affects me, and that just means I have to adapt. (He derps worse than CCP anyway)
 
This is the reason, for instance, that the Crows are nonaligned, and focused more on what it means to be a capsuleer. For us, flying together and having fun and adventure, and CREATING stories, is a big focus, instead of just living those of others. They mix, they mash, but we are masters of our own fates.

We are also the weirdos.

Saying all that, we do tie in directly with the fates of the Empires and null, because ultimately we fight to protect the former, often against the latter. But because of our stance, we are perhaps more resilient to the smaller termors inside the empires. (This idea is very much growing and in development, so it is far from presentable, but soon™...)

I am not saying that factional loyal RP is wrong, not by any means. We expect most of our interaction will be with factional loyal folk. Just sharing my perspective and why I take the approach that I do. It is sentiments like these that got me to change my thinking:

If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do.  The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.

Which was kind of the point in me wishing there was some far-off, forgotten place with a good PVE story where I could get away from the empires and nullsec grind for a while.  We've hammered slavery, invasion, and the same subjects over and over that, if CCP doesn't do drastic stuff much more often, we're essentially revving the engine in neutral.

What I am getting at, is that instead of waiting for CCP to do something, we still have all the in-between time to fill. We cannot save the galaxy every day. Some days we just do what we do and live our lives. Perhaps we should broaden our thinking outside of what I perceive to be "You have to support a faction to RP - Supporting a faction has to be in X way - The faction depends on what you do to save it"

Afterall, we are all the all killing demi-gods. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves in this universe filled with all the other people pretending to be pilots.

[Vic Van Meter]

Maybe the bigger problem here is that CCP didn't exactly give themselves a lot of wiggle room in that department.  Even if, going back to the tired example, WoW roleplayers got sick of the way lore was handled, they at least have other lore hanging around that can be completely divorced from the thing they're angry about.  If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do.  The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.

I really really don't think you are giving the lore anywhere near the credit it deserves. There is a ton of material on that Wiki and throughout the game to play off of, and most of it hasn't been touched. Even within the imperial storylines, the nuances are rarely developed fully.

Just because CCPs marketing latches onto Empires and Null, doesn't mean that is all there is.

No, I'm just used to quite a bit more lore than this or the freedom to make and expand if it isn't there.  I really don't have either in EVE, it's too restrictive to say it's really an open RP forum and there's definitely not enough of it there to say that the lore is very rich and deep in nuance.  This coming from someone who didn't LARP for that long comparatively speaking, but who has a shelf full of sourcebooks, including the Book of Nod, and who ran his own free-form RP in a created world, I've done both.  EVE's lore doesn't give you enough flexibility to run on the fly but the bigger problem we keep running into is that it's not specific enough about what we have.

Not saying people don't make great stories in it, just saying I wouldn't exactly credit the lore for that.

I tend to have more fun with other "non-roleplayers" who actually play the game for what it is than most "roleplayers" who seem to want it to be about playing United Nations Security Council in space, or some kind of debate club then complain when CCP doesn't provide enough things to write minutes about when the whole point to me is that the content comes from players and not the background.


I don't think most players pay their sub for the luxury of posting on IGS or in-game chat rooms, honestly.

What I am getting at, is that instead of waiting for CCP to do something, we still have all the in-between time to fill. We cannot save the galaxy every day. Some days we just do what we do and live our lives. Perhaps we should broaden our thinking outside of what I perceive to be "You have to support a faction to RP - Supporting a faction has to be in X way - The faction depends on what you do to save it"

Afterall, we are all the all killing demi-gods. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves in this universe filled with all the other people pretending to be pilots.

The problem with that is that if CCP doesn't give me the content, there are better games out there.  Not even getting into the WoW debate, I certainly wouldn't call EVE's gameplay the most engaging game I've ever played ever, certainly not worth the subscription.  I really, honestly wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for SFRIM and RP, a thought that's been echoed around here quite a bit.  I know the brother that I originally started in EVE to play with has moved back to WoW for the time being because he didn't really have anything tying him in, which was the only other reason I was here.  I might not have logged in at all if Lunarisse and the gang weren't making the game interesting for me.

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.  If I'm not paying CCP to do their end and it's pretty much been taken over by someone that I can RP with irrespective of the game, what exactly is my subscription going to pay for?  Everyone so far is complaining about the lack of content, news, and work that goes into our end of space.  I guess I just don't consider myself that much weirder than someone sitting in null on a scheduled patrol without caring about their character as more than a bag of stats and skills.  It's all a time investment, just ours isn't one that CCP seems to be willing, or able, to really put the work into.

[Jace]

The problem with that is that if CCP doesn't give me the content, there are better games out there.  Not even getting into the WoW debate, I certainly wouldn't call EVE's gameplay the most engaging game I've ever played ever, certainly not worth the subscription.  I really, honestly wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for SFRIM and RP, a thought that's been echoed around here quite a bit.  I know the brother that I originally started in EVE to play with has moved back to WoW for the time being because he didn't really have anything tying him in, which was the only other reason I was here.  I might not have logged in at all if Lunarisse and the gang weren't making the game interesting for me.

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.  If I'm not paying CCP to do their end and it's pretty much been taken over by someone that I can RP with irrespective of the game, what exactly is my subscription going to pay for?  Everyone so far is complaining about the lack of content, news, and work that goes into our end of space.  I guess I just don't consider myself that much weirder than someone sitting in null on a scheduled patrol without caring about their character as more than a bag of stats and skills.  It's all a time investment, just ours isn't one that CCP seems to be willing, or able, to really put the work into.

Well, as usual, the better games out there is all a "to each their own" thing. There aren't many MMOs that feel remotely open world to me, which is part of the reason I stay. And there aren't many set in a futuristic setting, which is another part of why I stay. And then on top of it, I do actually like Eve gameplay. But I understand that the "game game" might not be everyone's thing.

I think the part of all of these discussions we've been having lately that I have the hardest time connecting with is the notion that somehow other MMOs take better care of their RPers. I've never seen it. Blizzard doesn't care, Cryptic doesn't care, none of the MMO developers really care about their RPers. And in fact, most of them have less lore in my opinion - especially if you lean more heavily on random information and backstory in the lore you use instead of storyline, because so many other MMOs give you a simple, linear storyline as the background to their universe. Here, we have a Chronicle with virtually no purpose but to describe technological background lore. That doesn't happen often.

Edit: I suck at not adding things. But another thing I like about Eve compared to other MMOs is my skill queue keeping on truckin' while I'm offline. I'm so busy IRL, I love that my skills, PI, and market orders are doing things while I'm offline. Is that really a huge deal? No, but it's just an example of another little thing that I like about Eve. All the little things add up.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. 

I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.

When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.

I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.

Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.

So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.

[Jace]

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. 

I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.

When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.

I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.

Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.

So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.

While I understand and respect people that want to emphasize the "walk the talk" aspect of RP, I think part of the disconnect is what people look for out of RP. My RP has often been interested in interpersonal dynamics in addition to continually developing the specifics of my characters' backgrounds. Just like real life, interpersonal dynamics require a great deal of simple discussion ICly.

And on top of it, I'm just very erratic in-game as far as what I do on a day to day basis.

[Elmund Egivand]

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. 

I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.

When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.

I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.

Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.

So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.

That's more or less how I play my character too. I gave him a background, a history, and use it as a guideline on how Elmund would act in any given situations (though admittedly I might have dropped the ball plenty of times). Other than that, what he does at any given point is the RP. So when he shoot some other guy, that's exactly what he is doing IC, and the motive for doing it is the character's. At the same time, as a character, he has lines he will not cross, things he will not do, a set of principles he will not violate. If any action were to violate any values he holds dear, I won't do it, because he, as a character, won't do it either.

Which is why I do not make alts for market or whatever. He, as a character, will do these things. It is all part of his growth as a character.

[Vic Van Meter]

The problem with that is that if CCP doesn't give me the content, there are better games out there.  Not even getting into the WoW debate, I certainly wouldn't call EVE's gameplay the most engaging game I've ever played ever, certainly not worth the subscription.  I really, honestly wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for SFRIM and RP, a thought that's been echoed around here quite a bit.  I know the brother that I originally started in EVE to play with has moved back to WoW for the time being because he didn't really have anything tying him in, which was the only other reason I was here.  I might not have logged in at all if Lunarisse and the gang weren't making the game interesting for me.

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.  If I'm not paying CCP to do their end and it's pretty much been taken over by someone that I can RP with irrespective of the game, what exactly is my subscription going to pay for?  Everyone so far is complaining about the lack of content, news, and work that goes into our end of space.  I guess I just don't consider myself that much weirder than someone sitting in null on a scheduled patrol without caring about their character as more than a bag of stats and skills.  It's all a time investment, just ours isn't one that CCP seems to be willing, or able, to really put the work into.

Well, as usual, the better games out there is all a "to each their own" thing. There aren't many MMOs that feel remotely open world to me, which is part of the reason I stay. And there aren't many set in a futuristic setting, which is another part of why I stay. And then on top of it, I do actually like Eve gameplay. But I understand that the "game game" might not be everyone's thing.

I think the part of all of these discussions we've been having lately that I have the hardest time connecting with is the notion that somehow other MMOs take better care of their RPers. I've never seen it. Blizzard doesn't care, Cryptic doesn't care, none of the MMO developers really care about their RPers. And in fact, most of them have less lore in my opinion - especially if you lean more heavily on random information and backstory in the lore you use instead of storyline, because so many other MMOs give you a simple, linear storyline as the background to their universe. Here, we have a Chronicle with virtually no purpose but to describe technological background lore. That doesn't happen often.

Edit: I suck at not adding things. But another thing I like about Eve compared to other MMOs is my skill queue keeping on truckin' while I'm offline. I'm so busy IRL, I love that my skills, PI, and market orders are doing things while I'm offline. Is that really a huge deal? No, but it's just an example of another little thing that I like about Eve. All the little things add up.

I think what I'm getting at is, if CCP doesn't care about RP and lore and only the game, why not just play the game and RP elsewhere.  I heard the 5th edition of Shadowrun was a whole lot better than the 4th was.

Which isn't really getting away from the crux of the matter; just because other developers are only moderately more or less interested in RPers doesn't really affect the stat of the EVE IP.  Being disappointed in everybody else doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't be disappointed in CCP itself.  I suppose I can't judge EVE's lore amount on the basis of WoW, for instance, as Blizz released the first game in the Warcraft IP in 1994 and have a metric ton of source to go with it.  I can't judge it on a book or tabletop set because lore is mostly what they do.

I guess if I hadn't had such a broad experience, from having the freedom of my own RP world to manage to the minutiae of games like FFXI that weren't meant to be RPed in, but I did, EVE's lore isn't very special as much as it's just rather vague.  I kind of got over the V:tM thing after a few years in high school.  Hell I was eventually playing a reaction to V:tM's core zeitgeist within a year.  I've had some time to read the chronicles since I started and I can't say I've come away with as positive an impression as other people have.  It's not bad, it's just not terribly engaging.  I can't say I came away from reading any of it wanting to add anything or start a new character arc.  Which, in the end, is kind of the point of RP lore.  At least, after you've read something about paladins in whatever game they're in, you're usually cooking in your mind what it is like to be a paladin or how to disrupt the paladins or something.  Same thing with necromancers or combat engineers or drone riggers.

In EVE, I guess reading about the Khanid doesn't make me want to play a Khanid, for example, and reading about the Black Eagles didn't make them seem very interesting.  It just makes me sort of shrug.  It's not a, "I've seen this before" or "I've seen this done better" way, more of a "I can't really say I have any reaction to this whatsoever" thing.

Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. 

I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.

When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.

I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.

Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.

So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.

That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE.  My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being.  I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms.  The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules."  There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm.  Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.

Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die.  The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive.  We aren't challenged that way in EVE.  The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups.  While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case.  EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play.  I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.

EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.