' Wrote:The game as in "in game" is the heart of the Role Play server of course.

But at least since i have been here i have always seen Discovery as a dual entity; That is the game itself, and its forums. Your character should be able to stand up more or less without an epic novel on the forum to back it up, but that being said, we know thats not the case with some characters hence there is a "special RP section", there are also faction background posts, faction stories etc etc...

Granted, some people are just not going to know your backstory - which is fine, do you know everyone's back story you meet in life? Nope.
But, if you have taken the time to write a story about your character, then that other person has the option of knowing more - they don't have to excersize that, but its there.
For me - the writing i have done for my characters on the forums has given them depth, which then adds to the character in game - you might seem my character doing something in game, going somewhere and ask "why are you doing that" - now, if you were concerned i was doing something OORP, you could pm me, and i have no prob explaining.
However a better way of dealing with an unusual circumstance is simply to Role Play it yourself... who cares if you haven't read my back story.

"what are you doing there Corsair?".... If you have read the back story, maybe you will know, if you haven't, maybe not - but its still an encounter that has to be Role played anyway.... Role play in game and out is about creativity after all, its about taking on the role of someone else and then being as that character might.

One thing that i always love though in game is when i can tell - via someone else's RP that they actually have read my back stories, it adds to the experience quite a lot. I also personally like knowing the back stories of others, it also makes their characters in game seem so much more fleshed out.

None of this is something thats mandatory in any way of course - if you don't have the inclination to write things or even read them, then you shouldn't and don't have to. I'll relate to you in game by how your RP with me - and there is nothing wrong with that because some people like to keep it simple. But if you do have a backstory and i have read it - then perhaps my RP with you in game might incorporate that and make it that little bit extra....

However - Part of respect is respecting differences - so you don't write stories, big deal, it doesn't make you any worse than "veterans" who do, you're just as much a part of this place as them, and if you are Role Playing in game Kudos to you.
And if you are a Tolstoy writing epics on the forums, then Kudos to you as well, and i'll check out your stories. Immersion is different for everyone, some of us, can do it with a line of text in a chat window - others, like myself to be honest, like a little bit more than that (for my own characters at least) and thats how they play.

' Wrote:If people want to write endless and complicated stories (and they are correctly called stories, not RP or roleplays; roleplay is a verb, not a noun, so you can't write one), then knock yourself out. But when they make it necessary for the rest of us to do so in order to interact with them on the server, that is simply selfish and abusive of other people's time. It is also totally confusing to new players.

I can't even count the number of times I've seen people first create a character, and then start posting forum topics asking what faction that character should belong to, or what ship they should fly, etc. Whatever that is, it isn't roleplaying. Roleplaying activities are driven by the role that the character plays, not by obscure pseudo-psychological and/or historically driven events that only the player owning the character is aware of when he encounters anyone else.

When someone sees you on the server, they see a Junker, or a Police or whatever, they don't see a neurotic, revenge-driven, mother-abandoned, Liberty Rogue who actually hates Outcasts and cardamine because an Outcast hopped up on Cardamine crashed into the transport his sister was on killing her in a fiery inferno and causing said LR to go on a Sirius wide crusade against his faction's ally. [Insert the snarky comments of your choice about poor punctuation and grammer] On the server people just think, "What's wrong with that fool? Doesn't he know the Rogues and Outcasts are allies?" because perhaps 1% of the server population even knows your story exists, and even less would remember any of it if they encountered you.

' Wrote:Solution ... treat even the bad role players as if they were role playing ... or ignore them.

' Wrote:One of my pet peeves is with the CD spammers. Don't mind you using one to drop me from cruise. But when I'm no longer in cruise and I don't attempt to get back into cruise ... its time to start role playing. Drop me out of cruise and start talking. Gotta be a reason you dropped me from cruise. Way too many people I encounter drop me from cruise and go immediately to the guns. And I think they have their CD's directly connected to their guns because when they pull the trigger both the guns and the CD's fly. Can we get some role play? CD me ... then speak with me. If I do not attempt to jump and run or try to fight you ... why do you need to fight me? If I have illegal cargo ... role play with me and be patient ... I can't go anywhere. You've caught me and I'm either gonna drop the cargo or get destroyed. Don't be so impatient that all I get from you is "I said drop the cargo ... bang." You don't gotta keep my shields down ... especially when NPC hostiles are about.

' Wrote:Perhaps if I make a fancy signature and upload an avatar, my point of view won't be entirely ignored. Anyways, uh...

Though there is no panacea for these issues, I have an idea!
Password-protect the server.
And then make the password available on the forums with registration! Isn't that brilliant? Preventive medicine, not reactive medicine!

' Wrote:Great idea and then you would discover that the true blue absolute rp is better than the game itself crowd makes up about 5% of the server (and 95% of the forum posts).

It would be a small..very small..happy group of people (though I doubt most of them will ever be very happy).

In church life we have a saying: "There is no perfect church. It stops being perfect as soon as you attend." The point being that you can criticize every church you go to because someone or something there won't be perfect--just like you.