I've run into the Phantoms... maybe five times in the past two years. Y'all aren't around much, you know. So when I saw you running around in New Berlin earlier, I decide to specifically and intentionally seek you out in the hopes of actually getting someone to RP with me, since I've had an unusual amount of difficulty with that today. Sure, I expect to get killed, 'cause that's what you're known for: you're murderous terrorists.
End up catching up with you around Hamburg, and my character proceeds to make annoying comments. I get... maybe three lines in response before you start shooting up random Military indies, and eleven during the fight. I float around chattering and being ignored, which might be unsurprising if there weren't six of you - mostly fighters, including a LF, but with a few bombers too - shooting at a lone cruiser.
Eventually I end up thrusting off and EKing to get out of the line of fire, and look away for a moment typing into Skype. At that point, I'm floating away from the battle, well out of combat range. I glance away for a moment to type something into Skype on a different computer, and look back to see myself blow up.
I'm bothered by two things. Firstly, the quantity and quality of the RP. Only people who made anything other than generic evil comments were Grief and Doctor Adolf Ludwig, the latter of which did actually issued a couple lone lines of decent RP that actually set his character apart from your random standard-issue insane terrorist. Grief managed some okay RP, but nothing specifically notable. The other four - Mobeus Paradox, Pitchfork, Harlequin, and one other who didn't say a thing at all and thus who's name eludes me - said either nothing or just low-quality one-liners with no personality or anything in them in any way.
Second, I was typekilled while I was obviously not paying attention. That is to say, I was EKing off away from the battle, and theoretically continued to do so when I was shot at (unless of course my computer decided to dodge for me. >.>). I don't know about what happened when I was being shot at, and I know y'all have more and more powerful guns than the rest of it, but if you hit every time, it'd still take one of your Shadows at least a good three seconds to kill my Falcon - easily plenty of time to realize I wasn't reacting and stop firing. Nothing says you have to stop, of course, but it's just common decency as players not to kill someone who's clearly not paying attention and wasn't previously involved in the fight in any way.
I don't normally post these things, mind you, but this isn't the first time. Last time I ran into y'all, there were five of you against my little dinky CSV, and I got maaaybe two lines of RP before I was pewpew'd at while docking at a gate. I seem to remember the lines were utterly uninventive; something like "Oh hello Little Sparrow" and "Time to die." Note also that my ship's name was "Little.Sparrow", or something along those lines, so... yeah, talk about inventiveness.
In fact, come to think of it, I've had a Phantom talk to me for more than a minute without trying to kill something... once. That'd be Akura. Oh, wait! He's not a Phantom any more.
I understand y'all play rampaging, murdering terrorists. That's fine. The problem is that you, as players, seem way too obsessed with the blue message. Yeah, you can shoot at me, yeah, but at least be reasonable about it from an ooRP perspective... and talk some, too. Sure, you can be terse, but you can be terse and still show off your character. Right now, eighty percent or so of all the Phantoms I've met have had the exact same boring non-personality. You don't even do it well, like you're playing someone who doesn't have a personality; as a roleplayer, it's something that I can only be identified as lazy roleplaying.
Unlike some people I won't name in such an open forum, I don't hold any specific grudge against you bunch. I'd love for you to improve. Don't be so sloppy, talk more, and don't destroy momentarily unresponsive ships as a matter of course. Y'all're better RPers than this - I've run into some of the same people on other characters - and the faction has great RPing potential. Just utilize those things, will you?