EVE General Discussion

Welcome to CCP.

I agree, traditional roleplaying as seen in more Tolkien-esque MMOs has a harder time in EVE. It's part of the culture I suppose - EVE appeals to people who have specifically gone out of their way to avoid some hackneyed Elf/Wizard retread, so their rejection of behaviour that reminds of them of that environment is understandable.

It's a shame that some people feel they need to attack content-seekers. In a sandbox gaming environment that is designed to accommodate a multitude of playstyles and encourage the player to find his own path, I don't understand the compulsion to disrespect folk who follow a different path. CCP doesn't do much to help the situation either. I've known CCP to decline linking player-created lore-based material on the EVE Online Facebook page, despite acknowledging its merit, because they felt it wouldn't be well-received by that community.

There certainly seems to have been a general cultural shift away from lore-driven material, so those who deride RPers seem to be getting their way. The Fanfest 2012 trailer was a welcome anomaly (and universally popular, encouragingly), but aside from that the vast majority of marketing material over the last few years has been targeting PvPers, so there's little wonder that within the current player population, content-appreciators and roleplayers are an endangered species.

It is not, Gallente are simply defenceless against Sancha invasion. It's a very good RP reason to invade their space.

Now that you mention it, I do notice lack of plot developments and in-game-world news in feeds. Those little pieces of fiction, like a series of reports about pop-singer's connection to a blood cult, or one about fedo-fetishist, were very good for world building. They made EVE feel more like persistent universe instead of "just a game".

Things went south when they started letting TonyG touch things in 2006, so south that there is a good chance it's not salvageable, but I'd like to see them at least try.

I would LOVE to see events where massive collaboration between capsuleers was necessary to solve a problem. Incursions are that in a way, but the scale should be larger. An event where minerals or other items are needed for the construction of something? Awesome!

Example: A plague has struck an important system and is threatening to spread like a pandemic. Corporation X (insert relevant NPC corp here) has come up with a vaccine but does not have the resources to produce it on a large scale. A massive call to action goes out and BPCs seed on the market, but only in systems that NPC corp exists. Maybe it requires PI from a new schematic inserted JUST for this event. Capsuleers flock to this system and a flurry of production activity starts. Vaccines can be dropped off at certain systems for dispersal. After a global goal is achieved, pilots get rewards. Perhaps LP / Standings, something appropriate for that corp, etc. If the goal isn't met, something else (bad?) happens. This might sound like a ripoff of other MMO mechanics, but I think it'd be cool and fun and could definitely be tied into storyline pieces.



It could be a mass call for minerals, ships, massive numbers of NPC courier contracts, all sorts of things. Incursions SHOULD be long lasting and affect systems for days or weeks, and spread / shrink dynamically. Pirates camping gates or stations? Holy crap! That'd be cool.

FW and RP have nothing to do with each other, and that makes me sad.

I remember back when I was a kid I was playing StarFleetBattles3 online (yeah I'm that old) and was out patrolling our border in my D'deridex (big frikkin' battleship) when I spotted some newbie in a Federation frigate doing something in our space. So I jumped into his mission, cloaked, warped up to him, decloaked and immediately snared him in a tractor beam. He fired off a few pointless shots into my shields (which did nothing) and I casually typed into local: "You are in violation of Romulan space. I suggest you leave. You will not be warned again." Then I released the tractor beam and recloaked as I watched his ship fly back into Federation space at breakneck speed.

Later I was engaged in a battle with someone flying a Borg Cube, a ship class that Romlan ships were particularly adept at taking out, but he didn't know that. After slowly wearing him down with numerous hit & cloak runs he started complaining "Stop cloaking and fight like a man!" (Not exactly in-character for a Borg, if you ask me). After I uncloaked right next to him for my finishing plasma alpha strike on his battered ship I replied "I'd rather fight like a Romulan." Like any true Power Gamer he then Alt+F4ed to avoid actually losing his ship.

Years later, in my Original SWG days, I got sick of listening to some Jedi jackhole brag about his leet PvP skills (all stats based, of course) in front of the local spaceport. So I challenged him to a duel ... in space, where stats didn't matter so much, especially against a Royal Guard TIE Interceptor with all custom fittings. He lasted less than 15 seconds. Again, being a "merciful jerk" I dropped right onto his butt and proceeded to systematically blow off his weapons and then his engines... and then I just flew away, leaving him stranded in space like a flipped-over turtle.

But that was gaming of yore, when MMOs were still called MMORPGs and before the domination of Power Gaming. These days the WoW mentality has pervaded every game out there, and power gaming is built right into the design of every MMO. There is no room left of for RP in such a world.

FW in EvE has nothing to do with RP, patriotic ideals, controlling territory or even PvP. FW is an ISK fountain. Was it meant to be like that? No, but that's because the players didn't want RP, patriotic ideals, territory control or even PvP. Players wanted an ISK fountain and so they looked at the FW mechanics, analyzed them, distilled it down to the ISK making part and threw the rest out the window.

And the saddest part is that they will continue to do so. They did it with Incursions before FW. They did it with nullsec sovereignty before that. Anything CCP ever tries to do to add content and lore to the game will be taken by the playerbase and rammed through their stupid ISK filter machine and everything it was ever supposed to be will be stripped away until all that will be left is an another pointless ISK fountain.

We have only ourselves to blame.