Roleplay ?

[tfmachad]

Each page I have turned in this thread I let out a sigh. When I read sentences like, "Factions are crap", or when I see people revolving already solidly decided matters just for the sake of stirring up commotion and promoting chaos I can't believe what I'm reading.

The people who have proposed to act as cushion themselves against punches of ignorance (no pejorative meaning here) and, sometimes, utter idiocy (total pejorative meaning here), are so worn out by the recurrence of these things and others whose apparent agenda is to undermine these guys' attempts to promote a meaningful environment, that they are becoming unable to act sensibly and with moderation.

Faction players bashing out the so called independents in general and the so called independents bashing out factions as a whole are both on different sides of the same coin. They're wrong. They have to take a deep breath and understand that after a fashion, every faction player is (not was) himself an independent and every independent is (not can eventually become) a faction player. Everyone is capable of gathering up around an idea and of acting on a whim.

People who condone independents' rights to act as they please and oppose to factions ruling out certain aspects of that freedom can't be serious. That attitude isn't even consistent. If you ask these guys, most will say that people shouldn't be so eager about reporting others. Official factions ARE smaller meta game entities of control inside the game. That is so because the various factions' proceedings have to be firstly approved by the community as valid and promoting of a sensible and meaningful enough blanket for a given role. There is no way anyone here can keep up with every individual story for each individual character, but we certainly can have a very good grasp of every faction's overall RP.

What a great solution then, let's revoke of every faction its authority as representatives of a given role and let each individual (not independent) come up with any particular role they feel like playing. Soon we'll have Bretonian Corsairs docking their Magma Hammer loaded Wraths in Malta; Rheinland Military officers parking their Spyglasses in Newark to have a beer with his Nomad friend; meanwhile, an LSF agent slits open the throat of a Phantom whose liberal discourse is ruining Mon'Star's chances in the Kusarian Presidential elections.

Oh, hey, but we do have sanctions, don't we? Right, let's all call up to our inner photographers and fill in the admins' desks with the more ludicrous evidences against some long gone standards no one else is able to recognize or dare to call upon.

Funny how faction players protect factions and independents protect independents. You that are reading this now, please look at the mirror and ask yourself these two questions: Can I really be all right? Can everyone else who doesn't share my opinion really be all wrong?

Fact is that you harden if you can't learn to transform things rather than to oppose them. Problem with mindlessly opposing everything is that one's bound to clash against things a lot. Being constantly fighting hardens you to a point where there's no flexibility left in you for change. If you can't change and your surroundings no longer reflect the 'statu quo' to which you have become comfortable with, you feel threatened, since you're so stiff you can't adapt anymore. All you can do then, is harden even further to become an unmovable guardian of that 'statu quo', even if things around you have already changed to the way you didn't want them to be.

That doesn't, by any means, disqualify the effort of the people who do try to keep some sanity and sense to our little universe. Granted, they may from time to time come up with too steep a regulation, they may act with passion, they may be wrong. They are human, for crying out loud. And as such, not only they err, but they also grow tired and get hurt. And it does hurt when the effort you've put into something is blatantly disregarded, disqualified and undermined. No wonder some become very aggressive.

And it's funny how people think of factions like they are some sort of secret hermetic societies of zealots who act in perfect unison and whose sole purpose is to downright eliminate everyone else's fun (and apparently their own in the process). Funny thing is that there's no such unison inside of factions, there's no hidden agenda to their operations, they aren't really hermetic, and their members aren't zealots.

Some of the new people won't know about this, but not long ago there were heated discussions about Corsair and Order characters (both indies and faction members) storming Liberty in a daily basis. Most of the time they'd come in mass (with a handful of capitals), kill everyone and literally dominate the space for some time. You'd have Osirises (and I stress the plural here) troll about New York system and orbit Planet Manhattan killing the lawfuls one by one as they left the Planet. There wasn't a declared war on Liberty by the Corsairs, there wasn't a scheduled event in which the attacked forces would be able to organize a defense. The Corsair/Order alliance would dominate Liberty for the kicks of it under the excuse that they were protecting their smugglers. Finally, when things went over the top, it took measures by both the admins and the factions (TBH and Benitez) to stop the nonsense. Funny aspect of the whole deal was that when things went crazy, they suddenly were considered responsible for all the characters, not only their players. And it's not that they really had any supreme power over the Corsair roleplay aspect of the game. But they were the closest thing to it with a constant presence in Gamma.

When the capital ships go rampant in New York, all most care about doing is coming to the forum and start "indie capitals unbalancing the game" threads. When SA/LSF try and do something, these threads are replaced for "SA/LSF are abusing their power" threads.

Last month there was a heated discussion inside RM's forum regarding independents. As in the rest of the community, RM has its share of simulationists, cinematicists and recreationists (as Patrick would put them). We do get at each other when we discuss controversial matters such as this. Either way, the whole point is that we all identified that there is a latent problem there, and as much as the enablers say that these claims are unfounded and that the problem with "rogue agents" and "impersonators" is nothing but alarmism, it does exist and it does get messy. I'm inclined to believe that they couldn't care less. "If there's anything wrong just file a report". Yeah, right...

One thing people turn a blind eye on is that there is a number of "concessions" made by official factions everywhere. Examples of that in Rheinland would be: Victor Remond, Airage, MP, Homeworld and so on. Why don't we get on to these guys? Double standards? No. We don't get on to them because they are independents, not "rogue agents", "impersonators" or downright troublemakers.

Three days ago (May 10th) my character started collecting intelligence on certain suspect ships that claimed to belong to the RM, validly tagged and IDed (or at least most of them). I say "claim" not because they don't belong to the [RM] official faction, but because they're playing anything, but an RM officer. Three days later we have:

1. An RM Cruiser completely equipped with Nomad weapons.
2. An RM Cruiser that completely disregards operating through any sort of consistency, not to our laws, but to the general RP of the mod itself. It openly claimed that it made its own laws while it trespassed other Houses' territories.
3. An RM Cruiser illegally operating in Sigma-13 like it had some sort of authority there.
4. An RM Cruiser commandeered by a Bretonian Civilian engaged in vigilante activities inside of Rheinland.

Three days...

And then, whenever these characters are encountered, it's our message dumps people turn to demand an explanation or some sort of action.

Number 4 was an interesting case. He came to our forums and presented himself as the Captain of a given RM Cruiser. I've questioned him as to the story of the ship. He presented us with a story of a Bretonian civilian commanding the military vessel. I contacted him in game and spent a great deal of time talking to him. I told him to come up another story, that perhaps the ship could be retrieved by the RM and properly re-commissioned and put under the command of a military officer. Considering his overall sensibility, as far as I was concerned, I wouldn't really oppose to him keeping the ship, I just wanted him to respect the feasibility of the universe we play in and come up with a reasonable story for it. Nothing against the guy, he's okay, but in the end he decided become a BH, and now there's a BHG RM Cruiser flying about. So much for consistency.

Anyway, the overall ambiance of the mod is great, but we still seriously lack enough balance between everything to make a true depiction of the generalized struggle for survival Sirius is supposed to be engulfed in. To portray that, there must be compromises on several levels. Of roles, of ships, of equipment. I do agree that some sort of limit is to be set, but that limitation cannot impair someone from successfully portraying his role. As much as it may be claimed that some of these aspects are being pursued so they can be abused, the original issue isn't invalid. I mean, the abuse doesn't invalidate the use. The mod lacks and we do have to go around it. Whether it becomes an excuse to gain an extra edge on the competitive side of the game or not, this isn't something that can be extracted from someone else's mind like that. One has to be very careful when pointing out to another person and deciding what it is that they have on their minds.

Now, let us not be hypocrites here. No one likes to play the punching bag anymore than the next person. It's easy to point out the shabby grass at the other side of the fence when you're the one with the sharp tools. And make no mistake, this goes all ways.

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