I'm afraid we are doomed a little, you know?
There are mechanisms in the mod itself, and the way the RP is conducted, that will allways lead to some frustration, and frustration leads to anger. Think about it...
1.I think the problem is that everyone treats their roleplay like a piece of art, or literature. I'm not saying that it isn't. (Because dear good, look what these people do, It's amazing!!!) People spent hours, or even sometimes
days to write (to create!!!) a good write up or RP post. See, they put a lot of effort into these these, and usually don't get credited. insdead of praising the high quality RP creations, we have made it a standard! The lowest bar to acheieve to simply be respected. What happends if people don't measure up? They meaure down. Out of frustration they start degrading other people's work, laughing at them, ridiculing them. I think everyone was guilty of it at some point. Take a look at some websites, where people conduct forum-only roleplay. You won't find as many artworks, write ups and whatnots, as here.
2. People create living, breathing characters interacting with each other in a fictional world. They gather up to form factions, and these factions also interact with each other. A faction here, if it does it's RP properly, can gain something special for itself. Other factions can disturb and completely stop others from doing so. As I have said earlier, people give a lot of time and a lot of heart to their play. What do you feel when someone shatters it? You feel frustration. InRP rivalry becomes real one.... and you feel double frustration, becuase you can't just say that you are angry over a video game, right? (Something
Hookier covered perfectly)
3. Situations where one player has power over the other. That's the model frustrator there. Police and Navy over it's citizens. Cap players over snub ones. Official faction leaders vs. "indies". Piracy encounters. No one logs in to become someone's subordinate. It looks to me like there are no safeguards against the abuse of that power by players. Only more frustration and anger.
4. Whole cap situation. It's a hell of a grind to get the most powerfull ships in this mod. Not only you have to fly transpoirts safly from point A to B, everyone expect you to RP in them. Ah, and let's don't forget those lovely pirates, stealing your last 20 minutes of grind from you, just for the sake of it. So what happends after months of grind, when you finally can afford your big-bad-ship? Players hiss at you for using them against other players, which was something that happened to you, by the way.... Endless frustration. There are many pointless things you have to do just to achieve something in game, or on forums (just think about officialdom)
Maybe our mod, and our rules have to change drasticly? Would you be ready for that change? The more I think about it, the more I realise that the problem might lie in the fact that our mod and our game, and our forums
are not well suited to be used as RP platform...
If you don't believe that there is a deep, rotting problem in this community I have a question for you. Let me just give you a quote from one of the tutorials available here, praised by everyone as good, pinned and whatnot.
Quote:(...) Any new group is crap until proven otherwise. While this does sound rather harsh, one must consider that there had to be plenty of these types of groups for the community to adapt such a ultimate. As a new faction, overcoming that label will be your biggest challenge.
I'm a gamemaster, with years of experience in DnD and other games. Would you like to play a second session with me, if I would welcome you saying things like "Every new character, backstory or party is shi*t, until you proove me wrong." That "I had soo many crappy players, that my position is justified?" And that 'Your biggest challenge in-game will be to proove to me that you are not crap?"