Official Factions exist to drive the role and roleplay of their NPC Faction. That's why they exist as 'Official'.
Most Official Factions are directly related to their NPC Faction (A counter example would be the LE which are the Official Faction of the Gallic Brigands). That means that if their Factions Roleplay/Lore is entirely/partially based on their NPC Factions'.
This means that the [LN] behave as the Liberty Navy NPC Faction, which is a PVP faction, as most Factions in this game are. You can't change that.
This isn't necessarily bad, as I saw players roleplaying their Official Faction characters on the Forum.
Guess why? Because when David Hale logs on, you know it's either a) somewhere in Liberty PVP is about to go down, or b) PVP happening in Liberty right now. When people see a [LN]/RM/GRN ship/ships logging on, they know PVP furballs are incoming. Especially at peak hours. You won't see a [HF] showing up into that furball to talk about how he got wasted last night.
The only exception that comes into my mind is the TAZ, who are a Roleplay based faction because they belong to the Zoners.
Now you said roleplay used to be larger quantity/better before. Roleplay is a commodity that perishes. Even in space, there aren't that many out of the ordinary situations that you can create to generate roleplay for long. They run out. The Navy boy who lost his mother and her frying pan to a hungry Rogue raid. The 9000'nd Colonial Civilian who watched his dog die to Outcast gunfire and now wants revenge in black and red ships. We've seen it all before, again and again. And it's boring, it's not interesting anymore. The Discovery Lore doesn't generate enough situations to allow for lengthy roleplay. Not everyone will create Ronins to play an exiled Kusarian.
Which leads to Indies. Making a random character that isn't the typical marine/soldier/grunt who isn't bound to a factions' roleplay allows freedom in roleplaying. I've seen indies roleplaying from Space Soda Merchants to Space Nuns, to Space Medics, to the ordinary dude who just bought a Starflier and doesn't know how to fly it and lost his manual.
But the bottom line is that Roleplay runs out. And nobody is to be blamed for that.
Im in two minds about the OP, I like coming across good RP, Only thing that's constantly new in the game if you get my drift.
But The "over rp" of back in the day is why I left despite loving the game.
I think there needs to be a middle ground were RP is heavily "suggested" but there's some tolerance, Why i suggest this is...
When I first started playing I couldn't RP at all this was my first RP experience I was far to constantly forced off the server Because I did something oorp/ooc Broke some rule I didn't know. People I did meet up with simply said "Keep your hand on the cruise speed button, Don't ever stop, And Claim your comms is broken"
Now there's significantly less role play, But when I do come across roleplay, that guy has been sitting waiting for RP for the last 3 hours, So its in depth good and long, And when i muck up, That Big battleship throws me an //oorp dude, that's ooc because (reason here)
Theres an "So you want to rp" Thread on this forum, But reading it doesn't make a player good at RP, Practice does.
Also theres alot of "Private" RP, Like I was told just the other day when querying the Zoner Corsair situation, A faction leader indicated they RP'd in game and didn't make RP forum posts Even though there actions Impacted a huge group of people. They said theres plenty of ooc posts explaining the situation.
I personally (Because im still not good at rp) Try to stay away from ooc/non rp posts about ingame events as Knowing about the comments can inadvertently have me talking about ooc stuff.
Also With the same Zoner - Corsair information request I was linked, and pm'd "supporting information" four times, this link was a "classified encrypted Corsair only" transmission, How is it ever expected of me to know side (A) is at war with side (B) if it's a private communication?
As for how to make it better I have one idea and one idea only. Theres alot of you GOOD rp'ers, and i mean real good dedicated guys.
My suggestion would be (With admin approval of course) to form a RP game master collective. (I think the admins probably don't get enougth fly time as it is,)
Have a straight forward policy, Make open decisions, And lets say I was reported for ooc rp, You look, Say obviously this was an accident, but we still don't want it, Hey spikefin 1,000,000 sirus cretit fine, Thus showing me i made a mistake, But not scaring me off the server. If i use same ooc maybe next time is 10,000,000 fine.
I know you wouldn't be able to "Enforce" such a fine, But im sure there would be a means to work with admin were you filed proper documentation and the fine could be en-forced. Lets face it, a simple *fine document* if objectively looked at, should be easier for admins than 50 ooc complaints a day for admin.
As a side note, What about Ideas on making RP easier, As I want to mainly play my zoner, I (And others zoner and corsair) Have no Idea WTH is going on, theres private comm's and meetings everywere. As such i cant rp, most people don't know whats going on, in my case "TAZ" say one thing "OSI" another and "(]o[)" wouldn't reply to hails, indies talk of all out war. I go Hang with 15 faction and indie Corsairs one night with no issue, everyones happy, I return Some Stolen Corsair weapons, some acquired artifacts, Some food rations were taken to crete, The next day its "We want to shoot you because X reason" 4 Hours later, Its back to Hey hows it going zoner, thanks for the food.
Sure it tells me something, It doesn't tell me why, no backstory. Theres also like 20 "indie" posts in same place saying this that the other.
Then we follow doc holiday around a bit and get these posts he makes
Im talking about this (Linkhere)
How come this(link here) happened
etc. I know exactly what doc holiday is talking about, Because he gives examples, reasons not meaningless statements, If i had to rp about Doc Holiday, I could probably tell you the color of his underwear If i have to r/p with Corsair thugs, I cant, Theres no actual RP info i can find. Just someone attacked X Anarchists this, corasiars that, that's not what happened, The official notes don't give ANY supporting evidence, what there basing it on.
I ain't gonna quote spikefin purely because f the wall of text but I will say I agree with his points. The RP of this server has been going on for quite some years now and it's getting very impenetrable to newbies. This needs to change, If a newbie asks what the smurf is going on, take a little time out to explain it. Don't just say "Go to the forums" The OORP discussions cannot be used by a character as knowledge, the communications are not addressed to them so also cannot be used as in character knowledge. Do not assume you've adequately explained the state of play on the forums, because frankly, you haven't.
Case in point: The current Zoner/Corsair conflict. This has been brewing for a while, there's been a lot of straws on the poor camel's back, and the damn thing has finally broken. But a newbie isn't going to want to spend the hours sifting through all the RP here to find which straws and when.
Perhaps it's time to create history summaries for the major players . Liberty, Rheinland, Kusari, Bretonia, Malta, Crete and Gallia. Explain within what's happened over the last X years and what that's translated into now. Cover major story points, cover minor RP happenings. Just make them concise, to the point and easy to read. In fact I'll start working on those as soon as I'm done with some important Admin work tomorrow.
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
' Wrote:I ain't gonna quote spikefin purely because f the wall of text but I will say I agree with his points. The RP of this server has been going on for quite some years now and it's getting very impenetrable to newbies. This needs to change, If a newbie asks what the smurf is going on, take a little time out to explain it. Don't just say "Go to the forums" The OORP discussions cannot be used by a character as knowledge, the communications are not addressed to them so also cannot be used as in character knowledge. Do not assume you've adequately explained the state of play on the forums, because frankly, you haven't.
Case in pont Zoner/Corsair conflict. This has been brewing for a while, there's been a lot of straws on the poor camel's back, and the damn thing has finally broken. But a newbie isn't going to want to spend the hours sifting through all the RP here to find which straws and when. int: The curre
Perhaps it's time to create history summaries for the major players . Liberty, Rheinland, Kusari, Bretonia, Malta, Crete and Gallia. Explain within what's happened over the last X years and what that's translated into now. Cover major story points, cover minor RP happenings. Just make them concise, to the point and easy to read. In fact I'll start working on those as soon as I'm done with some important Admin work tomorrow.
Hip Hip Horayy!
"In fact I'll start working on those as soon as I'm done with some important Admin work tomorrow."
Id love to help but unfortuantly im one of the "newbies" nowadays and don't understand much of whats going on here.
' Wrote:Actually spikefin, you might be more able to help than, for instance, I can, since you are in the right position to make the right questions...;)
I can start drawing up the latest events for the major factions by zone. Like Omegas, Omicrons, Sigmas, Bretonia, etc.
It's is a nice tool for the young ones to read and grasp the status quo.
Plus, i got time to kill.
No, Time is not bountied.
Yet.
<3
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:12:00] Traxit: this is smut stop
The last Moron that told me go read the forums in game when i asked what was happening(in RP) ate 2 mortars and got the response "forum say kill you, that is. My pet parret named Forum".
Factions need to learn there are hours, if not days of RP on the forums to read. Just because 1 person may not be up to date on a new post made 2 minutes earlier is no reason to knock them, or be azzhats in game.
' Wrote:Actually spikefin, you might be more able to help than, for instance, I can, since you are in the right position to make the right questions...;)
Ill assist in any way I can. Send a Pm with any ways you want help.
EDIT
Sorry it took so very long to reply, I figured I couldn't be bothered for a while so went outside 0.0