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[Louella Dougans]

On one or more of the current threads on the IGS, there is an argument about Amarr Navy ships invading people's space and taking slaves.

This is from a bunch of missions, such as "Human Cattle", an L2 mission series, and "Portal to War", an L3 mission series.

The large imperial fleets in these missions is frequently presented as IC evidence of the Amarr Navy's wrongdoings and much more, in opposition to news stories and evelopedia articles about the Emperor Heideran's proclamations that such things are illegal.

Similarly, there are other missions where the other major power navies are engaged in equally sinister things.

A Federation Navy task force attempts to protect a Gallente pop star who committed statutory rape.
Federation Intelligence gets a capsuleer to destroy Minmatar refugee convoys, so they can use the footage and bodies as propaganda.
Caldari Navy fleets use a war memorial from the 1st Gallente-Caldari war as a staging point.

Then, there are the many agents in opposing faction space, which give you missions that defy all reason. Gallente agents, deep in Amarr space, give you a mission to stop Amarr forces from bombarding an Amarr planet. Amarr agents deep in Minmatar space, tell you to stop the Republic Fleet from dropping virus bombs onto a Minmatar world.

Lots and lots of this sort of thing. You do missions, you get a big amount of things about how bad the opposing powers are.

Except...

The Caldari Navy and Federation Navy fought a battle once, above Caldari Prime, and it was WORLD CHANGING.

Even though the Caldari Navy routinely invades Luminaire with forces thousands of times larger than those that fought in that battle, that never, ever, makes a difference.

Similarly, for say the Blood Raiders, then they routinely invade the Throne Worlds with vast fleets of battleships and supporting cruisers and frigates, a thousand times a day, and this doesn't even register.

A pair of Ashimmus traverse a few systems then get blown up, and this is NEWS.


I feel that the largely static pool of missions, and the anti-enemy faction missions in particular, have an immense detrimental effect on RP, and on the ability of players and CCP to advance the storyline.

What good is ingame news, when it doesn't change the pool of missions ? What good is it, to see a chronicle or news story, where the Empress announces that all the MInmatar are now freed, when as soon as you log in, you can take a mission to stop the slave trade ?

What good is it, to try and argue about how the Gallente/Caldari war should be settled, when every hour, you are presented with evidence of the mutual atrocities ?


All these missions do, to my mind, is cause the same old arguments to be brought up again, and again, and again, with nothing ever changing, and that this has a detrimental effect on RP.


I'd suggest, that anti-faction missions, should either be moved to FW agents, or to the regions of space where FW takes place. So, e.g. in Devoid, the highsec agents might give anti-Minmatar missions, but not the agents in highsec Domain. Because Devoid is part of the FW warzone.
Similarly, you'd only get anti-Caldari missions in the regions which have FW contestable systems.

I think this might help, if complete removal of those missions wasn't possible or desirable.

Also, more ingame news, so players arent confronted by the completely static nature of the game world as blatantly.

[Mizhara]

What is more detrimental to RP is the whitewashing of factions. The example that annoys me the most (due to my current position as pretty much the only rawrmatar in New Eden) is "No, the Empire can and does not do no wrong. We don't do slave raiding. We don't do anything bad. We're the victims here." That's fine IC, as it's a good example of propaganda and good face outwards etc, but if you also remove the proof that this is not the case you remove and ruin quite a lot of the driving force for RP between factions.

I honestly don't like the idea of removing the uncomfortable bits that make your own faction a little less than pristine. I really love the fact that there are missions where the Republic are doing horrible things. It means my faction isn't the white to the Amarr's black. It's a faction that is struggling with doing what needs to be done for their own sake, while trying to maintain some moral and ethical high ground, etc etc. This makes a faction interesting.

[Katrina Oniseki]

EVE suffers from an inherent severe divide between the game world and the lore world, like all MMOs do. Just like in Swords of Guildcraft Online you do the same quest to kill X number of orcs, and a hundred other players are also killing X number of orcs, the orcs will still invade by the millions every day and it's only mentioned in passing one zone away.

Same with EVE. You have to provide content for everybody, and missions were an early form of that content that was implemented with a healthy dosage of suspension of disbelief.

[Samira Kernher]

You claim whitewashing where there is none, Miz. Whitewashing implies intentionally ignoring that they exist. Most people have readily admitted to their existence. What we HAVE said though is that they're illegal, and that Imperial authorites crack down on them, which is directly stated in lore. Now, the authorites do often turn a blind eye, but that is entirely different from it being legal and officially sanctioned.

I don't feel uncomfortable bits should be removed. They can and do happen, by every faction. I DO think there needs to be more options to choose how to handle it. If you are given a mission to do something illegal by your faction, then you should have the option to go through with the mission or expose/sabotage it. Rejecting the mission is an option too, but I think providing branches like with epic arcs is a more engaging method. Caldari already have this in the form of their epic arc, where you have the choice to support the shady SuVee side or the honorable Wyrkomi side. Likewise, it should be possible to get missions from authorities that -do- crack down on internal illegal activity, because, again, it is said that this occurs in lore. Similarly, you could get missions where you work to cover up the activity from said authorities.

Options are always better than none.

[Mizhara]

Official or unofficial sanction doesn't really matter. It's done with consent and I'm frankly tired of being painted as the only bad guy in the cluster lore-wise.

[Samira Kernher]

Official or unofficial sanction doesn't really matter. It's done with consent and I'm frankly tired of being painted as the only bad guy in the cluster lore-wise.

I really don't see how that is happening? Minmatar have bad elements, but they're still largely treated as the victim faction and thus in most people's eyes can do no wrong. If you want to be painted as the only bad guy in the cluster, play Amarr.

Like I said, I think that EVERY nation should have BOTH illegal things happening AND attempts to crack down on them. It should be standard that lawful authorities try to do their job while less scrupulous sorts break said laws. I see nothing wrong with giving everyone choices. Every empire should have both good stuff and bad stuff, and there should be opportunity to see and participate in both.

[Letos]

I just did my first step into the EVE lore and found the early missions against rival powers helpful and important. Until now, I did not stumble over incoherence or contradictions. But even if they exist, I think they are tolerable if you adjust the frame of reference for yourself and give such NPC missions an appropriate importance in regard to your RP and the main storyline (similar to what Samira posted above). So for me, missions and RP somehow fit quiet well. At least for now.

About some characters being 'painted bad guys', I can't say anything yet. But I can imagine that 'official' lore at some point contradicts roleplay development, of course.

[kalaratiri]

If you want to be painted as the only bad guy in the cluster, play Amarr.

*cough* Literally any pirate faction *cough*

Especially Sansha or Angels. The rate RP'ing as one of those two generates hate is relatively spectacular.

[Samira Kernher]

True, Sansha beat out Amarr for worst.

Angels tend to fall beneath Amarr though.

[Lyn Farel]

Official or unofficial sanction doesn't really matter. It's done with consent and I'm frankly tired of being painted as the only bad guy in the cluster lore-wise.

I used to play a very moderate / concord character which happened to have background ties with Amarr and point out the pros and cons of everyone, and got always called filthy slaver and painted as part of the bad guys of the cluster for whatever reason.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see most people painted as the most evil bad guy of the cluster on a whim. It's called dehumanization of the adversary, and it was done on a regular basis on the IGS and elsewhere most of the time. It's cheap and trite, especially in Eve RP, but heh, it's not only about you, that I can assure you.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Getting back to the OP, I tend to ignore such missions as contradictory to the PF.

Forget big battles for a second: Even small intrusions across national lines have long been written as ~serious business~. Two battleships crossing the Caldari-Gallente border was an international scandal; a handful of Minmatar intruding into Gallente space provoked a massive Fed Navy response. In this context, it makes little sense that the empires regularly go raiding each other - especially for reasons that they officially deny, such as slave capturing or rescue missions - and none of them are mentioning it whatsoever.

And then we get into the even derpier missions: There's one that has a high-level Khanid official conspiring for peace with the Minmatar, long after the Khanid made their choice of alliance. Agents still warn of a buildup of conflict with the enemy factions, long after FW became a thing. You can be sent to protect Amarr slave pens... inside of Republic space.

In-character, Esna's response can be summed up as "well, obviously SOMEONE is out there flying ships with [Faction] Navy insignia, but that does not automatically prove [Faction] Navy is actually doing it. The idea that these actions are sanctioned at the command level and performed by active navy units is very silly."

[Morwen Lagann]

I don't remember which mission this was, but it's from a Level 2 mission offered from the Caldari mission pool. Seemed relevant.

Iyen-Oursta Loopholes
Gallente Navy ships are not often allowed inside State borders – at least not officially. Conditions determined in the Iyen-Oursta Treaty at the end of the war place strict conditions on the manner in which each nation's fleets enter the other's sovereign space.

One of the current laws allows such deployments, though, if they are hired by a third party as part of usual trade business. Additionally, they must meet stringent size and composition requirements that greatly limit any damage they could potentially cause. Since official search and rescue missions are, by treaty, conducted exclusively by the nation that owns the space, further "hostile" forces cannot legally be sent to recover hired navy forces that go missing.

[Havohej]

I don't remember which mission this was, but it's from a Level 2 mission offered from the Caldari mission pool. Seemed relevant.

Iyen-Oursta Loopholes
Gallente Navy ships are not often allowed inside State borders – at least not officially. Conditions determined in the Iyen-Oursta Treaty at the end of the war place strict conditions on the manner in which each nation's fleets enter the other's sovereign space.

One of the current laws allows such deployments, though, if they are hired by a third party as part of usual trade business. Additionally, they must meet stringent size and composition requirements that greatly limit any damage they could potentially cause. Since official search and rescue missions are, by treaty, conducted exclusively by the nation that owns the space, further "hostile" forces cannot legally be sent to recover hired navy forces that go missing.

And there we have it, the IC PF element that explains everything.

EDIT: To clarify - Huge Amarr fleet in Republic Space with slave pens and the whole nine yards?  How'd they get there!?!?  Well, somebody hired them, clearly.  And once they were in, they started doing whatever they felt like doing.  Now go blow them up and sell the tags.

[Esna Pitoojee]

...actually, I take that the exact opposite way: IF the navy is doing anything across the border, they're being monitored inside and out and will be annihilated the second they make a remotely shifty move. The linked PF does more to explain how all those stations in nominally "hostile" faction territory are being resupplied.

For that matter, it hardly seems likely that the navies would continue to be allowed to engage in cross-border operations - no matter how tightly regulated - if they are regularly engaging in violations of the treaties that allow them to be there in the first place.

"Hey, the last [faction] battlegroup we let in decided to kill a bunch of people."
"Okay, we won't mention it to anyone. At all. Even though this would be the PR coup of our dreams."
"Well, uh, what about this other battlegroup that wants to come in?"
"Oh, well let them in of course!"
"But what about the people the last one killed? Shouldn't we, I dunno, put a security hold on until we can be sure they won't do the same?"
"Of course not, don't be silly!"

See? It just sounds silly if we assume regular hostile incursions are a thing.

[Havohej]

We live in a world, right now, you and me, here on Earth, where exactly what you just described is a regular occurrence.  I mean, you can't prove a negative, so without entering into the realm of logical fallacies let me ask you: do you believe for one moment that the only US operators in the Ukraine are the ones openly publicized on the news, or that Russia doesn't know about the US operators that are there?

The Iyen-Oursta loophole described in the PF Morwen quoted provides the explanation for how/why [Faction] ships come to be inside enemy territory.  Quafe hired Fed Navy to escort the supply convoy to that Quafe outpost in Lonetrek.  Great!  Now that they're inside State borders, they set up whatever they set up, or they start undermining whatever they start undermining.  Or whatever they decide to do.  Are they tightly monitored?  Of course they are - how else could Agent X at Lonetrek L4 Mission Hub Y send Capsuleer Z to go fuck them up?

Why do they continue to allow Fed Navy ships into their space under the Iyen-Oursta loopholes?  I can think of a variety of reasons:

1.  It's more trouble than it's worth to violate the treaty by refusing to let them cross the border.  This would require either pulling the leaders of the 4 Empire Powers to the table to renegotiate, crippling economic sanctions or outright war for breaking the treaty.
2.  It's much easier to just send one of the thousands of capsuleers available to go fuck them up.
3.  Not only is it easier to send a capsuleer to fuck them up, it's also cheaper than sending their own Navy taskforce to fight the "rogue" elements of the enemy Navy and cheaper than renegotiating, suffering economic sanctions or outright war - which, by the way, would likely be sparked by sending their own Navy to eliminate the hostile force to begin with.  Sending a capsuleer costs them a couple million ISK and a few loyalty points.  Sending a Navy taskforce and replacing the losses incurred thereby would cost hundreds of millions, possibly billions if it goes poorly.
4.  What's not to love about watching a capsuleer fuck up an entire enemy Navy taskforce?  Especially when you know that:
5.  The enemy Navy would absolutely not dare doing anything that would break the CONCORD treaty itself and escalate to full-scale war.

Seems silly not to maintain the status quo, I'd say.