Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mizhara]

Edit; Nevermind actually. I really should stop taking derail bait. Call her unreasonable for not trusting slavers working with Sansha if you want.

[MakotoPriano]

Uh, k.

[Veiki]

It's this strange duality and dishonesty, where you are demonstrably having some sort of impact - the amount of privchats and other logs are kind of conclusive - but at the same time acknowledging this in any way IC is utterly unacceptable. Can't really have it both ways, can you? This then is the reason why there does need to be a victory conditions update for wardec mechanics etc: When the losing side decides to go down with the ship, stubbornly and out of pride refusing to simply lose and agree to terms, instead just crying out OOC about 'bullies', it really is not the attacker that's being unreasonable as far as I'm concerned.

Look, I wasn't baiting, but I would say you're experiencing the frustrations that have existed with RP-PVP in Eve with all sorts of groups and has become a familiar cycle now:

RP-PVP group establishes itself on an IC premise and seeks to pursue its IC agendas through the use of force because it is deemed by its players as appropriate to their chosen background.

RP-PVP group in pursuit of its IC agenda starts a war against another RP group because in the context of their chosen background it is deemed appropriate.

The RP group that is wardecced, instead of fighting or negotiating IC with the RP-PVP group decides, "Hey, you know what? We can't fight these guys so instead what we'll do is call them a bunch of bullies and play the victim card both IC and OOC so maybe they will stop!"

RP-PVP group starts facing a whole lot of pushback and drama OOC over their actions by others in the RP community where they're painted as the villains for using force even though it is appropriate to their fictional background.

So yeah, when you say things like you've encountered things like RL threats, or that you're feeling confused and frustrated that you're called "irrelevant" on the one hand by your chosen roleplaying targets trying to belittle your in-game efforts in public to save face while in private you see the impacts of your actions as being pretty damn relevant to them by contrast I'd say I believe you because I've been there, and so have many others before.

The only question for any RP-PVP'er is usually when they come to the realization at just how Janus faced the RP community can really be when confronted with a situation they cannot just /emote their way out of as the victor is: do you go for the full scale nuclear option of maximum salt extraction upon your enemies or not.

And honestly, just because you and I would have what might be considered history it doesn't mean if you were to send me the logs or mails of folks in ARC threatening you in RL and I thought it verifiable, that I would not gladly wardec them myself.

[Samira Kernher]

So, I can't speak on all of it, as I'm sure there's more going on that I haven't seen. However, it seems a bit of a misrepresentation.

Eh, the example you used wasn't anything relating to approaching and seeking a diplomatic solution, though. Just, "we did this thing we think should please you" then wondering why it wasn't responded to favorably. SFRIM/ARC probably would have been freely allowed to do it and even respected for it had there been resolutions arranged previously. Hell, I talked to people on Samira and gave suggestions on routes to pursue to get the war ended in relation to this event, but there just didn't seem to be any desire to pursue them.

In the case of this specific event, even if they're ultimately delivered to Minmatar agents, there's always cause to worry of insincerity or that some are getting skimmed off the top first. It kind of has to be factored in that there's reasons to distrust intentions, especially when SFRIM/ARC have given legitimate reasons to be suspicious of them (SFRIM working with Angels, Sansha people using ARC facilities during the event, etc).

Apologies for the derail.

[Veiki]

Just to expand on my earlier thoughts to Mizhara:

What I think you are experiencing is what every and any successful RP-pvp player or group will encounter in prosecuting their wars. That the roleplayers who are unable to deter you will resort to the only form of resistance they have available: to attack your reputation and that of your character. You will be cast as the villain and evil incarnate, a bully, a "griefer" and no doubt some kind of real life psychopath because you pvp. You will be character assassinated and slandered. You will have your roleplay cast as both irrelevant and illegitimate by what is considered the community. Every single attempt will be made to frustrate you, ostracize you, and make you a pariah until you stop and bend the knee to kiss the ring.

The thing is though, from what I see, everything Mizhara Del'Thul the character has done has been keeping in line with exactly what I would think a Minmatar willing to use violence to prosecute their goals and agendas would do.

So the only real question I think is if you want to stay true to your character at all times, or give in to the pressure and let the bastards win.

[kalaratiri]

I'm not sure it's strictly fair to say that Mizhara is being cast as a "real life psychopath" for pvping. I've certainly not seen anything to indicate that sort of behaviour.

In a game where everything is PvP, is it really a surprise that this includes PR? If SFRIM or ARC, or whoever it may be, cannot find a way to militarily defeat Mizhara ("defeat" in Eve being a fairly nebulous concept to begin with) then is it really surprising that they might turn to battlefields where they have a better chance? The court of public opinion may not be able to stop a war, but it can certainly be used as an effective tool to prevent others joining it.

As far as becoming a pariah, Mizhara(c) has never needed anyone's help with that

[Veiki]

A bit of hyperbole for effect in my previous statement, but seriously, notions on rp-pvp have gone through the exact same cycles since about day one in Eve and it's always going to remain a deeply polarizing issue -- the existence of these very forums for example being a result of the fallout from the Star Fraction days and the differing perspectives on what is and what is not legitimate in the use of pvp in rp (among a host of other issues).

Addendum: It's just that if you're going to push pvp hard in rp and be a bit of a dick about it then dont be surprised if there's pushback and criticism on it levied against you.

[MakotoPriano]

Sami; my understanding is that overtures have been made at points, but they've been turned away, or else milked for maximum salt/humiliation before being turned away. And the entertaining thing about your second 'don't trust ARC' point is that it was a single Sansha RPer at the end of the event, in a freeport that Miz herself has used to lambast us as ignorant. So, either IKAME's ignorant of mechanics, or eeevil (collaborating with Sansha!), or... it's a freeport? And, either way, using it as justification for a preexisting declaration seems... circular?

Anyway, we could roll in the mud over this all day.

For me, the long and short is this. EVE is EVE. PvP in EVE can be consensual or non-consensual, and it is what it is. Even when we might roll our eyes at high-sec wardeccers or pipe-camping gankers, it's part of EVE. If anyone gets excessively salty or makes threatening statements, let Luna or I know, and we'll deal with it, as it sounds like Luna has in all cases she's known of before. In the meantime, I might recommend Miz being less self-congratulatory over successful salt farming. I don't think anyone has a moral high ground to put themselves on in an internet spaceship video game.

Mechanically speaking, though, Kala nailed it on wardecs. Given the structure in EVE, wardecs do vastly favor the attacker. There are no win conditions. Neutral alts, scouts, and channel surveillance (because RPers tend to be in visible places) make it easy to pick a target and hunt them for multiple days if need be. Miz *is* an eminently capable hunter, but also plays sporadically enough that planning to try to trap her is ineffective at best.

So, meh.

[Veiki]

I will grant a change to the highsec war mechanics to permit more social RP style corps to exist in a less hostile potential environment is a good thing to me.

Sure, some people might say no it's all about the Elite PVP and "lack of consequence" but honestly, as a roleplayer who pvp's you can be as safe from IC consequence in lowsec or null anyway if you know what you are doing.

[Silas Vitalia]

It's a very thin line between IC salt and rl salt. For some there is no line. For RPers having their characters and shinies getting shat on, there's usually no line.

Always been my least favorite part of Eve RPers, nobody like "losing" whatever the f that means in an RP context.  Losing is often actually much better for character development, makes you more "real."
I've always had 10x the respect for characters that could lose face IC and keep on trucking

[Isha Vuld]

Here is the whole problem with roleplay in EvE that I feel muddies this discussion considerably:

PvP, and frankly, EvE online in general is adverserial. Players do whatever they can to one-up one another.

Roleplay is cooperative.

This is a problem.

If you wardec another group of roleplayers and start PvP'ing at them when they don't want to, you are playing EvE exactly as intended. After all, that's what this game is famous for, isn't it boys and girls?



The problem in my mind is that roleplay is the exact opposite. Crafting a narrative takes hard work, writing ability, and most importantly, consent.

If you desire to do something to somebody else in a story setting that can not be done via hardcore PvP, you shall need their permission, and sometimes even active cooperation for it. If not, they will simply say "this did not happen" and all you have is a quagmire at worst, and at best, you get your way at the expense of driving roleplayers out of the community.

Excessive hostility is also, sadly, not something a roleplaying community can afford, because roleplaying communities are extremely small places. It is unfortunate that many communities have a tendency to alienate newcomers in spite of this, because they surely need new blood more then virtually any other kind of community in any MMO.

In short, you need each other, and it would be highly advisable to find some way of getting along with each other.

And this creates problems when the adversarial nature of EvE collides with the cooperative nature of the roleplaying format, specifically when you wardec an RP corp that simply wants nothing to do with you.

I'm not quite sure how to resolve this. EvE is a game where OOC and IC ambitions are highly entwined and this has the potential to get messy. If you wreck a corp's assets for RP reasons, they may well be OOC'ly miffed to have their hard work go up in flames. Their fault to be unable to defend it, except that for the roleplaying aspect of the game, cooperation is desired, and they will be unwilling to give it.

"Why is this my problem?" - Well, because there is the very real risk of an RP community dissolving into near non-existance or becoming restricted to only a tiny clique of people who never interact beyond their own circle, effectively resigning roleplaying in EvE as a nigh nonexistant aspect not worth bothering with.

If you ask me, this is a problem that doesn't have a fix though, and I'l tell you why. If we go the way of other MMO's and hold consent sacred and back off whenever an RP corp asks another roleplayer to stand down, then, I'm sorry guys but let's be real here: They will abuse that privilege as a shield to bail out of any conflict that doesn't go their way.

If you ignore the requests of other roleplayers however, then it is only reasonable that these people are not going to be in any mood to work with you on crafting a larger story or narrative, and you are indeed doomed to use only the constraints of the game mechanics for any future storytelling.

This, however, does have my preference. I would rather EvE be EvE. If you cannot hold on to your assets or are incapable of achieving an objective, then it sucks to be you, but that's the nature of the beast. I cannot imagine how drab the roleplaying world would be if we where not able to assault each other without consent. Oh no wait, I can, I've seen it in many other MMO's, and basically nothing of consequence ever happens because nobody will allow negative consequences to happen to them. Patently undesirable.

The best I can say is: Keep doing what you are doing and make life hell for your enemies, but do try to keep things amiable on an OOC level. Ideally, we should be able to have it both ways: Blast each other apart without being so sore that we cannot speak to each other OOC'ly.

Even outside of RP, this is considered important, and fleets I have been a part of have at several occasions ceased fire early and permitted the enemy to withdraw out of sportsmanship and for the sake of preserving amiable relations. We're all here to have fun, after all.

[MakotoPriano]

Fair on all points, Isha, Silas.

Speaking generally, I do come back to Kala's "win conditions are amorphous," as well as Louella's "the only immersive resolution is to drive the enemy characters out of existence" for cross-faction adversity. Smart, no-holds play is optimal, but tends to run counter to narrative-building. God help us all if we actually won these big conflicts, because it'd mean we'd just killed the community.

For instance, let's take Nauplius. Here there's very much a split between 'optimal play' and narrative-building. To properly 'win' and stop Nauplius is to ignore him to the point that he gets bored, doesn't roleplay, and quits EVE. After all, playing with him in the normal IC fashion is 'giving him attention,' which motivates Nauplius to continue being Nauplius. The flip side is-- he's generating content. He's an over-the-top and somewhat ridiculous villain, and gives people something to do. However, to 'win,' we  need to ignore that content until the character withers on the vine, which is detrimental to the community.

On one hand, EVE must remain EVE. On the other hand, we're also engaged in creative (and in theory collaborative) story-telling. Some of the most recent 'wins' for Mizhara have, in fact, required other people to do things that were suboptimal, like Nauplius 'giving up' after a relatively brief period whereas optimal play would just be him logging off, logging back in five or nine days later, and doing his slave-sacrificing; or, in the case of the Khanid attack, ISD:NEC running with events that are essentially mediated by trade goods being in a given station, whereas at various points people call others out for story work that requires activity that isn't mechanically permitted.

So, as said, it's an odd one, and I don't really think there's a proper resolution.

But, that said, if any individual salts excessively or makes threats, make sure to give Luna and I a heads-up and we'll talk to them about EVE. vOv

[Mizhara]

I really didn't want this thread to become a debate on this particular conflict. It was meant to be about this particular phenomenon as it's been encountered throughout Eve's long career, and our views on it. Still, twice now there's been very specific examples drawn out and claims being made so I am going to have to respond or be pretty severely misrepresented, seemingly maliciously.

Sami; my understanding is that overtures have been made at points, but they've been turned away, or else milked for maximum salt/humiliation before being turned away.

There's been one. Miz was approached by a certain dessicated avocado who fell asleep in his soup mid conversation. Where that conversation was going to go is to this date entirely unclear. All other "overtures" as far as I can remember have been OOC in nature and largely consisting of accusations of bullying. Some of the better quotes have indeed ended up in my bio, like "pray you never meet me in real life you will not like it...." for instance. That one's nifty. "You are an asshole, there is no ic reason you would be in CVA space." is right up there with when a whole slew of us were accused of being "SSoE toting pacifists". I don't really count OOC salt spigots to be 'overtures' of much of anything, especially not when they often open with variants of "fuck you".


 

And the entertaining thing about your second 'don't trust ARC' point is that it was a single Sansha RPer at the end of the event, in a freeport that Miz herself has used to lambast us as ignorant. So, either IKAME's ignorant of mechanics, or eeevil (collaborating with Sansha!), or... it's a freeport? And, either way, using it as justification for a preexisting declaration seems... circular?

It was never used as a justification for the war declaration. It was further confirmation of ARC/SFRIM not being trustworthy. You can exclude people and entities from Freeports, and not doing so with creatures like Sansha etc is a very dire sign of "these can not be trusted with anything vulnerable.". The justification not to trust ARC/SFRIM at the beginning of the event was very simple: SFRIM had already disappeared thirty thousand people once before, and SFRIM members had broken deals and agreements in relation to even more of Miz's people on top of that. Throw in the fact that pretty much from the moment SFRIM joined ARC, their members started appearing on killboards fighting for the slaver Empire and the ARC/SFRIM combo instantly and very publicly made themselves an outright stated enemy of Miz and her people.

Expecting a Matari to trust them with one, much less hundreds, thousands or millions of their people is kind of a nonsensical notion.

In the meantime, I might recommend Miz being less self-congratulatory over successful salt farming. I don't think anyone has a moral high ground to put themselves on in an internet spaceship video game.

It's less about self-congratulations, and more lamenting the lacking willingness to resolve the issues. All this salt is so unnecessary. Instead of OOC recriminations over playing the game, perhaps diplomacy is in order?

Mechanically speaking, though, Kala nailed it on wardecs. Given the structure in EVE, wardecs do vastly favor the attacker. There are no win conditions. Neutral alts, scouts, and channel surveillance (because RPers tend to be in visible places) make it easy to pick a target and hunt them for multiple days if need be. Miz *is* an eminently capable hunter, but also plays sporadically enough that planning to try to trap her is ineffective at best.

You know, I dec'd this other bear alliance recently. They'd done my own bears grievous injustices, so Miz intervened. Pretty instantly I was expertly lured into a trap, my FleetPhoon and a Tengu up against not only the FleetPest and Ashimmu I'd initially scouted but also several logis, more Ashimmus and a Loki. If I hadn't lucked the fuck out and disengaged with haste, I would have been up shit creek without a paddle. It was gloriously done and if they'd had time for a backstop I'd be down two very expensive ships. Then we talked a bit, had a few good laughs, congratulated each other and so on. Then a couple of days later they actually attacked my Fortizar. Adrenaline rush extraordinaire. I hadn't "piloted" something that expensive in PvP since I flew the supers, and even then only when combining with alts. These bears came for me with gusto and vigor, and did fail eventually.

I was invited into their friends channel when the dec was over, as we'd jousted, tussled and then after a bit of diplomacy gotten to an agreement.

They trapped me, almost successfully. They attacked my Fortizar, also almost successfully. They didn't need to see me in channels or anything. They have less tools at their disposal to both be aware of me and my actions and countering them than any RP entity. Most of my scout alts are burned after a single kill or so and the rest of them are ones that are already known. You all have them marked, and you know when I have eyes on you guys. You also know when I'm online and in all likelihood know or can know exactly where I am. I should be one of the easiest marks to protect yourself from, or even be aggressive against out there.

Yes, highsec wardecs do favor the aggressor.

... to a degree. I'm also one single player. I can have a few scouts out there. If I luck out with the engagement location, I might be able to have a second combat character on grid making both of them work at 70% efficiency at best. Most of my hunts have been successful because of one thing: My enemies choose to not fight back, for the very most part. So many of my kills, other war targets have been in system or just one system over, but no one's come to help them. It's so rare to see them protect each other. I've had a WT RLML Caracal on grid with my Svipul, watch me warp to the ice-belt, where I slowboated almost 100km to reach the WT Hulk, kill it, loot it and leave... uncontested.

Okay I'm rambling by now, but the point is... yeah, this is hardly a situation where the defender is lacking options. Oh yes, if you guys spread out and bear solo and don't watch local I can probably rush in and get a kill. It's happened a few times now. However, how do you think I'd fare against two HACs? Three? A HAC and a Battleship? Two Battlecruisers even? You guys have the numbers and industry that vastly overshadows anything I could possibly bring out.

You won't, of course. People simply don't want to fight and that's fine. Just don't say it's because it can't be done. "We cant fight you" is a direct quote. It's also demonstrably wrong.

[Louella Dougans]

reasonable surrender terms.

There are no such things in certain conflicts.

Would Mizhara the character ever agree to terms that included giving up support for slave rebellions ?

Would Aldrith the character ever agree to terms that included giving up the Imperial religion ?


The conflicts are not something that can be resolved like the Holder wars, where one side ceded a few planets to the other, and both agreed never to mention a certain incident ever again.

Terms would represent betraying the absolute core principles of the characters involved, in the majority of cases.

Giving in to terrorists/slavers/hedonists/whatever the gallente hate the caldari for.


now you can argue that breaking the core principles of a character would make for "good rp", and for a select tiny handful of players, that can actually do that, it might. But for other people, betraying the core principles of the character, causes the end of their interest in playing that character at all.

like terms that would include joining a true slave network. If people wanted to play a nation character, they'd have started a nation character.

If you the player end up having to do stuff as your character that you don't enjoy, then, why play ?


Say you have a Caldari character, and stuff happens, and the only 'honorable' course of action would be that Tea thing, and declare that character dead, never playing them ever again. Or, to dishonour their name, their family's name, their corporations name and so on, and go Gurista, in order to keep playing that character. But you have no real interest in the kind of largely random violencing that the Guristas do, or attempting to justify things in the somewhat farcical easter bunny events. If you did, you'd have made a character that was gurista from the beginning, wouldn't you. So either way, it's the effective end of playing that character.




and then there are the 'cheap' options of hahaaaa, clone backup ! and various other 'retcons' that people have attempted to make stick.


So, rppvp, lol. I dunno. vOv.

[Mizhara]

Of course there are reasonable surrender terms in most conflicts. You're just making up extreme ones that only ridiculous characters would demand. Hardline characters doesn't mean too stupid not to moderate the demands. What stands in the way is the unwillingness to take any terms at all, because that would imply not being a flawless winner.