Daelin Blackleaf
Aliastra
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Posted - 2007.10.20 04:28:00 -
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Edited by: Daelin Blackleaf on 20/10/2007 04:33:22
The issues brought up in the OP are not the issues with the RP community, but the issues plaguing the entire game. The lack of individual importance, the tedium of achieving "success", the often poor state of immersion.
These things bother everyone, even immersion is important to the average player, they wish to play "internet spaceships" in a world that feels real, where things happen, where things don't just happen but they do so for a reason.
The real problems with EVE RP seem to be, as ever, the people, not the mechanics.
CCP seems to be under the misguided impression that the community is fine without input from them, indeed the oft repeated themes of "everyone role-plays in EVE" and "it's the community that drive it forward and their stories that matter" are really quite annoying.
You could say that everyone role-plays in battlefield, they certainly don't believe they're soldiers but they're often seen acting in a tactical manner with well laid strategies and a militaristic chain of command. You could say "everyone role-plays" in every single game on the market where the player is represented as something other than themselves. This does not a role-playing game make.
As for the community driving it forward, this is true to an extent, it's all about those little personal stories and how they intertwine and effect each other. But a roleplay community is like a... well a weed. It'll survive fine on own, indeed it will survive in the most hostile of environments. But if you care for it properly it can be much more. Those little stories mean much more when there are more points of interaction, events in the world drive these stories, and the "events" of alliance warfare and super-cap destruction really don't matter to those not part of that scene anymore than the news of what is happening in Mexico really matters those living in Belgium.
The community itself has it's issues, all communities do especially those made up of such unique characters (both in-game and out), but such things generally iron themselves out. Sure we could all do a little more to bring the role-playing "together" and we could do everyone a favor by lessening the elitism but the fact is these things are prevalent everywhere. Some people will always use RP as an excuse to be asshats, and some people will always be asshats over RP. All you can do is try to lessen interaction with those who have a negative impact on your experience, be it the elitist RP lawyers or the nublets who are "doing it wrong."
The state of role-play here is far better than that in many, many other MMO's. I put this down both to a good environment and a more mature community. But it could be so much more. Isn't that what we're saying here really? Role-play isn't "bad" or "dead" it's just that we all know that it could be whole lot better.
It's not down to the community to make it better, it's down to CCP. The weed will always have thorns. You can't change human nature. But if CCP can start feeding it the nutrients it needs by way of events, news, and generally more interaction and that feeling of being part of a living breathing world our role-play experience, and the gaming of all EVE players will be vastly improved.
That you can't spare a single member of staff for a day to write up a little material is down-right depressing. I personally don't feel what was being asked was necessary but the answer seemed to be, it's just not as important as our other projects. Are there really so few role-players in EVE that immersion itself isn't worthy of a department of it's own? Even a couple of employees whose vague and open-ended full-time job description is "to improve immersion" would make the game vastly better for everyone.
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