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[Lyn Farel]

I've been away and not had access to a posting-friendly computer for a few days, but something came to mind on my train ride home today.

First off - I've done that particular kind of forum RP before. I participated in an EV:Nova-themed one called "670 NC". (Assuming I remember the name right, anyway.) It was fun, but even though I knew two of the other participants personally from school and was often able to work with them directly on posts, and I had plenty of other stuff to do, waiting for other people to respond really could be painful.

Anyway - that specific style of RP? It might not be happening on the official forums, but people are already doing it every single day. Regularly. Can you guess where?

In channels. In real-time.

Every interaction is important and can have an impact on every other interaction that follows it, especially in an environment like the one that EVE provides. Look at it this way.

Let's say two characters meet up somewhere and talk. For whatever reason, some sort of meaningful ~thing~ happens or is said during that interaction that would color and influence those characters' interactions with themselves and others.

If that interaction happens in a chat channel, then the two players are immediately able to act upon what happened and use it elsewhere in other interactions, in real-time, as part of the universe.

On the other hand, if it played out in an RP-by-snail-mail forum thread? It could be days, weeks or even months before that impactful thing actually was written out and would become usable elsewhere, even though it technically happened quite a while before that in-universe.

Reconciling the two completely different timescales is difficult and incredibly unpleasant, especially when you KNOW something important and meaningful would have occurred during that scene, but don't know what it is yet because you haven't gotten there yet due to the nature of that RP style.

I'm not saying that the two methods are 100% incompatible, but when it comes down to it, one is a lot more compatible with EVE than the other: when there is an actual, living world that changes from day to day due to the interactions of the players, RP-by-snail-mail is approaching equivalency with shooting yourself in the foot RPwise. Perhaps in another game where the universe is largely stagnant and the players' actions have no effect on the world around them, it works better. But in EVE, you are generally going to be better off with the more real-time interaction you can get through channels and treating the IGS as an in-universe forum, than trying to old-skool it.

Yes, that's exactly the problem, especially with a game timeline running in parallel. Thus why I often prefer to deal with past stories, or something rather timeless. Shalee started one or two like that in KotMC, one involving our characters when they were children. That was exceptionally original and fun, but sadly it didn't took off.

But anyway, forum RP is often at its best peak before games are released most of the time.

[Anskek]

Also you clearly have a story in your head and man it seems pretty interesting. You should use this chance to start an RP arc with a few others and gradually expand it to get more folk involved. Could be pretty baller.

[John Revenent]

It might be convention, but it's nowhere in the rules. They say, "This is a place for roleplay", not, "This is an in-universe forum".

Returning to this.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/capsuleer-idolatry-on-the-rise-1/

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/sansha-kuvakeis-resurrection-truth-or-trickery-1/

"Most notable was the rise in popularity of the GalNet forum, a podium venue for the capsuleer community to bring to light issues of concern to them and their associates. Originally intended as a pure communications vehicle for pod pilots, GalNet has, in the course of the last year, become something more."

"However, the appearance of a man identifying himself as "Master Kuvakei" on the Intergalactic Summit has whipped up a frenzy of speculation."

IC news posts that directly reference the IGS as an in-universe forum.

Everything you write on the IGS is your character ICly writing it. By lore, what you write on that forum is actually viewed by not just capsuleers but also by hundreds of thousands of baseliners. Posting on that forum is your character sitting at a computer (or connected via their Neocom), staring at their screen, writing a message on an in-universe message board. In many instances, things posted on the IGS have been referenced as official statements by capsuleers and capsuleer organizations by in-universe news organizations.

Ergo, if you were to, for example, start an [Open Roleplay] thread, it would be viewed as Gwen, the character, ICly starting a roleplaying thread. Roleplayception.

That is exactly how I view it. I know I am late to comment, as per the usual.

[Lunarisse Aspenstar]

That could be fun.  I always enjoyed the telnet stuff I've played on.  Sadly I don't have time for that sort of thing right now... 10-hour days, many commissions, much shekels.

EDIT: More to the point, if someone starts a thread like that on the IGS with that in mind, good luck.  But with it not being what Eve RPers are used to (and I know so many people ingame for whom Eve is their first experience with intentional RP), I would not have high hopes.  Someone go enter it into the "IC Forum is going to be a thing" thread as a suggestion, I don't see why we can't have an area just for that format on the IC test forum when it opens.

I like this idea by Hav.  +1
I'd be willing to give it a try. I do agree that the IGS isn't the place for it.

[Gaven Lok ri]

History has a lot to do with it. There were very *strong* ideas about what it meant to be an RP PvP group back when EVE started. Some of them came out of the Ultima community, others out of the Shadowbane community. But aggressively confrontational propogandistic  RP posting was one of those elements (Another was PIE's one race/one set of ships rule. That sort of thing was much more normal in the first few years of EVE). People's idea of what it meant to play a MMO, especially a PvP one, was a *bit* harsher back then.

I think a big thing was that EVE, unlike other MMOs, actually allowed people to embrace RP philosophies that were much more extreme. You can't say "everything that happens in game happens" for WoW or Everquest, you could for EVE. This was especially true in the early days before missions got to the state that they are now in. The decision to ban OOC commentary on the IGS came from that philosophy.

In many ways the original chatsubo OOC forum was created specifically to fill in the hole left by the decision that IGS was 100% IC. Things like those sign up threads mentioned in the OP were supposed to be done there, and then they could play out on the IGS. In practice that never really worked, for all sorts of reasons.

[Lyn Farel]

Well, I disagree on the fact that you can say that everything that happens in Eve happens. To me it's a big delusion, something that eve players like to tell themselves...

[Samira Kernher]

Well, I disagree on the fact that you can say that everything that happens in Eve happens. To me it's a big delusion, something that eve players like to tell themselves...

When almost every mechanic is given an IC reasoning by the devs themselves, and the actions of all players including OOCers is regarded as IC within the universe, that lends to viewing everything that happens in EVE as happening.

It is not always feasible, though these instances are rare and thus it is certainly far more the case in EVE than in any other MMO.

[Lyn Farel]

How so ? On most MMOs it's a pve issue mostly.

[Arista Shahni]

To drag this right bacl tp page 1 - that tbh is why I has so much of an issue finding the 'backstage' EVE RP, or I'd have been around in 2009, not .. whatever my backstage signup date is.

In 2009 though all of my RP went into C&P >

[Samira Kernher]

How so ? On most MMOs it's a pve issue mostly.

In most games, the things in the patchnotes are treated OOCly. Mechanics are treated OOCly. In most games, there is a heavy divide between 'what is OOC' and 'what is IC', both among the devs and among the players. The devs don't care about keeping changes in line with the lore, and make no attempt at describing them in any IC capacity.

That doesn't apply in EVE. In EVE, the changes are almost always explained in some way by the lore (often but not always directly by the devs through news articles, chronicles, and so on). Even bugs are treated as IC (the first bright star was a bug, and yet got 5-6 news articles about it, treating it IC). And there is no divide whatsoever between what you do and what you RP. You cannot say 'I only died OOCly'. You died ICly.

Your UI is IC (the Neocom). The UI is definitively not IC in other games.

EVE is very, very unique in this capacity. You can't play full-time IC in any other game, because you are consistently faced with OOC mechanics and scenarios that were designed solely with playability in mind and not lore. You will be laughed at, mocked, and ignored by other RPers if you attempt to claim that those mechanics are IC in any way, and even the devs will tell you they're not IC (for example, warlocks having demons out while wandering the streets in Stormwind is not IC, as stated directly by the devs. It's purely an OOC tolerance for the purpose of gameplay). In EVE, you can and are expected to be IC in everything you do. Hell, every single developer department is given an in-universe explanation, complete with corresponding chronicle.

In almost two decades of playing MMOs, never have I experienced an environment like EVE's, even in other sandboxes like SWG. EVE is unique in its all-IC-all-the-time mindset.

[Lyn Farel]

I don't know, I used to think that way too in the past, but now... Now that I have seen all those silly discrepancies in Eve, the only thing i'm more or less sure of is that in other MMOs as you say, the divide between OOC and IC is clearer while in Eve they most of the time try to put square pegs into round holes, since their gameplay doesn't always match or directly contradicts PF and lore. One one hand I find it laudable that they care that much about the lore. On the other, I find them more dishonest than their fellow other MMOs by trying to hide the obvious silly things under the rug.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not because you see it less in Eve that it doesn't exist.


Edit : I understand perfectly well how immersion breaking the things you describe like death (duh, explanations for death in SWG were so awful, but that game is maybe the worst example ever in terms of respect of its lore), or your WoW example (even if I never played it). I mean in SWG one of the things that made me cry tears of blood was watching idiots aggroing NPC guards and mass killing them for hours and piling up their bodies at the city gates, since the devs were obviously not even able to balance that out like CCP did with CONCORD (but again, SOE and balancing in that game... lol). What I mean is that since the goal behind Eve has always been to provide consequences and meaningful actions, you will not see balance breaking immersion like that, but what you will definitely see, and in a decent amount as well, is like your WoW example. We can go very far in Eve finding for silly things, and pve is only the most visible of all : where has gone all civilian traffic ? How is that undocking takes me exactly 3 sec to do instead of full minutes ? etc etc. We all know why so, but the reasons are purely OOC. Maybe you can find stretchy IC explanations for that, but I'm pretty sure you can for everything, starting with your wow example (are they just illusions and not the real thing ? It's probably silly, I don't know, i'm no wow expert...). But in any cases, those explanations are completely silly, and some of the ones that are given to us by CCP are sometimes silly to begin with (how many silly things with cloning and the likes ?). You can also ignore it, but that's exactly the same thing in other MMOs.

[Samira Kernher]

Oh it exists. You'll note that in my posts I've used words like 'almost every mechanic', and 'not always feasible'.

It's why I say EVE is more IC than any other MMO. While yes, there are some things that are unexplainable or silly, you cannot deny that EVE as a game at least tries a lot harder to narrow the gap between IC and OOC than any other MMO out there. I'm a person who never thought that playing a game full-time IC was even possible until I played EVE.

[Lyn Farel]

I wouldn't be so unequivocal myself... I have played MMOs like TSW and they explain most of the things perfectly well, fluidly, and I have had a very much harder time to find discrepancies than in Eve. Maybe because the setting is less obnoxiously complicated, sure, but the result is here.  Then, maybe i haven't experienced everything in that game though.

[Gaven Lok ri]

Most of the easy places to find discrepancies are in features that weren't there in the first couple formative years, as well. i.e., much of the PvE. Edit: Also civilian traffic is still there, but warp to 0 means you don't really notice it and the total population of EVE is so much higher than it was that the civilian traffic feels ridiculously tiny. When the total population online each day was 4k and you had to snail crawl into the station, those little 5 ship convoys were much more impressive than they are now.

I find it much harder to say that everything that happens in EVE is IC than I used to. In many games the game is *better* than it was in the early days, but it also feels more like a game, if that makes sense.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Honestly, I have mixed feeling about Eves literally-everything-is-IC attitude. While I really like and admire it for it's effect on immersion, I think it also fosters kind of awkward trend of both players and developers trying to make everything in game work ICly, even when it streches the game world to a ridiculous point and would be better off being glossed over. Here are some things I've had people claim at me:

- That pod pilots are not permitted to go down to planets under any circumstances. Ever.
- That all stations have a mandatedly uniform internal structure.
- That all clones are based around identical templates, which is why pod pilots never have height or body type variation (I heard this one from a dev!)
- That Russians are an actual group in the setting based on their widespreadness in the game community, even though that breaks immersion enough on it's own and defeats the whole point!

It also seems to lead to bunch of really awkward in-universe justifications when the lore inescapably conflicts with the gameplay, that players feel the need to resolve ICly in ways that are also awkwardy and doubly-contradictory, rather then suspending their belief like every other group of MMO roleplayers have learned to do as a habit. Such as claiming CONCORD can shut down any capsule they want instantly (why wouldn't they do that to the people murdering them in nullsec?) when license aren't paid for, or that Capsules are rigged not to be able to see civilian vessels, except for when they sometimes can?