EVE General Discussion

So what happens when someone randomly shoots an actor in the face during a monologue?

GET.........A..........LIFE



All of you. If this fascinates you.....wow, just wow.

Thank you very much for the awesome ideas and support! I didn't expect such a positive response, and this is really motivating.

I am definitely going to make it happen. It will take a while though, partly because I'm quite busy now and also because, regardless of the scale (which will be small first) I want to give a quality performance, and that requires practice, detailed study of the lore and training. Expect the first results around summer, but I'll try to work on it as soon as possible.

Since I see some people would like to hear more of how I think the story could be delivered, here's a description of how a "play" would be performed mechanically (this example involves a low scale play in which the customers are aware of the fact it's an act).


Structure of a play:

Corporation A decides to purchase tickets for the play "XXX", advertised as being 2 hours long, intended for 4 to 8 players on frigate-sized hulls.

Soon after the payment, all six pilots from Corporation A are greeted by EvE-mails explaining the rules and mechanics of the play. They're instructed to be at a certain high-sec system at a certain hour, where the play will take place.

At the designated time, all the players are invited to a private communication channel. In there waits a faceless, hooded character called "The Voice" or "The Narrator".

The Narrator doesn't take direct part in the story. His role is to deliver the narrative, sort of like an interactive mission text. He will feed the customers paragraphs from the narrative (which are pre-written or improvised depending on player choice). Also, he will receive the player input when the time comes to make an "action" (For instance, if players must enter a password they must deduce from the plot, they will do so at the "Narrator" conversation). Everything the Narrator says would have narrative quality and be flavourful and lore rich.

The Narrator may also start private conversations with any of the players to convey information only one of them must know.

At this point, the Narrator will establish the base of the story and likely introduce communication with other members of the play. Perhaps a Concord official greets the players offering them a risky infiltration mission, or a treasure hunter mentions a legendary stash. These characters will be described not only by their direct actions but by the Narrator, who will provide extra detail about their ships, personalities and background. By cooperating (or not) with those characters, the customers will navigate a story which should involve mystery, puzzle elements and some fights adequate to the level of ships required.

The idea with the fights is to exploit their interaction with the narrative. A good way to do this would be to present the customers with seemingly impossible challenges, that they might overcome if they paid good attention to the plot. For instance (and forgive the wacky example). They might face a crazy Dominix pilot, who was been reported to never attack moving people with his Warrior IIs, and never attack stationary people with his Hobgoblin II. This would never be said up front to the players of course, they must work this information out. Then with this information, they may face the Dominix and kill it by changing their movement when a new flight of drones comes out.

This simple play I'm exemplifying may span between 2 and 8 systems and take in the vicinity of two hours, and have enough branching paths to make it interesting for more than one corporation that buys the tickets. Also, there is the idea of the "Best Ending", a very, very difficult path to take that will completely solve the plot mystery and reward the customers with an accumulated jackpot prize.



That's a rough sketch. Obviously this isn't the only model that could work. Ideally, I'd like to start the service with two "plays". One of them like this, in which customers are aware of being involved, and another in which they aren't (requested by a third party). Obviously though, the second one would be harder to pull off, and more difficult to assure quality, as the customers may behave in any way including zero cooperation, so the interaction would have to be a little more limited, but still doable.

Also, seeing as this would be a drama corporation after all, there is room for random skits everywhere around the universe, free "happenings" that involve unsuspecting people just to bring them some laughs (and some publicity to us).

So making people pay for what boils down to a role-playing event?

You could put it that way.

You pay for a service.

Just like hiring mercs, which boils down to paying people to pew pew.

You could say that when going to the theatre too.

The difference, I think, is that it is an actual service. Roleplaying events are usually meant for all parties to enjoy and participate in, while this would be a predesigned, well-practiced, researched and written storyline.

Ideally, if the performance was good enough it should be worthy of being paid to experience.

I would pay for something like this, but I'd try and disclaim the "eve mails - rules of engagement" and have a FC understand the rules.

The reason this is interesting is it offers what the OP suggests, an experience.


There was a CSI episode where a dude heads to Vegas, some girl approaches him and acts like "dude my bf". He manned up, moved round, met an actor playing pool in a bar, beat him for $10k (put up by the arranging party), got chased for the money in a rental sports car etc.

Anyway the guy had no idea it was staged, and ended up dying, but he had fun!

But yea, if i were paying, i'd be doing it for unknowing player reaction during live video, like Alliance Tournament with a script and chase situation.

Like starting off at a gate camp waiting, then 10 rattlesnakes, followed by their escape and the fleet chase that followed.

But yea, the price would be negotiable :P