Seriously. Why are so many role-plays so serious? If I stumble upon a piece of role-play, it is most likely to be either an exchange of verbal grenades, or an overbearing wall of rules and laws, or a coldly formal correspondence between people with sterilized souls. I call for an increase in warmth (not to be confused with ***..(warmth)..***) and humour.
Also, call me a hypocrite. I have one character for whom the latter two can apply, but to be frank, I prefer role-playing my other characters.
Additionally, most of RP on the comms channel are audio-visual transmissions, and yet one can often find whole walls of text there, or entire treaties with precisely defined clauses, or many unrelated paragraphs addressing different subjects. If your character really said all of that, they would have to drink a few glasses of water during their enormous speech. Or in the case of a treaty, the receiver's clerk would have to listen to it over an over so it can be turned into the textual form. It just makes more sense to use the textual form rather than audio-visual for this kind of correspondence.
I've seen like three extra cringe-inducing levels of seriousness in a roleplay conversation between a few players from different factions. But that is over the span of 1 and a half years. Then again, I rarely see people who aren't the routine Navy patrolling parties or regular miners who go to the same clouds I do. So I can't really say anything since I don't see a lot of different people. Still though, from my point of view it rarely happens
I can confirm that Disco has been like this since at least November 2010.
Do something thats not in the script of some tunnel-visioned RPers, and riot ensues.
Like, fly some Zoner whales through Bretonia, and every BPA* is attracted to you like a friggin magnet and immediately wants his 5 million credit fine or you "face annihilation".
Or fly a Zoner Dreadnought through Bretonia, and every BPA* is attracted to you like a friggin magnet and immediately wants his 5 million credit fine or you "face annihilation".
Or fly a Zoner Dreadnought through Liberty, and every LN is attracted to you like a friggin ...
It mostly feels like despite some people want to actually RolePlay, the ultimate goal of most players is either pew pew or making money.
(For example some British lawful lad named "thunderer" (wonder who that might be) wanted to escort two Zoner Dreadnoughts (wonder who that might have been) out of Bretonian House space, but some BPA* jerk insisted on his 5 million credit fine, thus ending in an unnecessary battle, and not only once. No wonder those two Zoner Dreads despite playing for several hours never made it to Gran Canaria.)
To be frank, there should be a healthy balance between the two. Thunderer has certainly found it, I struggled to actually do combat well with the out-of-combat taunting his character was doing, and it fit into the moment very well.
It's really a matter of how comfortable a player is with something. I'll admit, I'm inflexible, and certainly end up as one of those that reply in a cold dead fashion occasionally, without any emotion and whatnot... It's just finding a healthy balance between roleplaying, keeping the mood/moment, and avoiding to be a complete meme-spouter (thus crushing the former two).
It's also the case on what was the goal for the person behind the character, all that roleplay might just be a pretext to just fighting and getting a blue.
While I have to admit it's not 1st class RP, Shalo (don't get me wrong, it's not bad!), I appreciate even when someone tries to have some spirit, and you did more. That is what role-play often lacks, spirit. Sometimes I feel like talking to robots instead of people. RPs are identical too often, and characters need something to make them noticeably different from each other.
Can you tell me what exactly is the issue with the local police of a house not really wanting foreign warships of the biggest possible kind inside their doorsteps without invitation, or why outright caution or fines in case of law breach are the wrong responses in situations like that?
The problem is that "funny" roleplay in Disco ends almost always in "funny" memes, zero quality and a broken immersion. I know only few roleplayers that can do "funny" roleplay that can be taken for serious. We have enough bad memes, pseudo-roleplay and generally low quality stuff in Disco. Therefore, I actually like the bits of serious roleplay that I read/do because for me, seriousness is a marker for quality.