' Wrote:None of this is really new. I've seen it since I was first here a year ago. There may be more of it, but that's likely because we have more people from other defunct PvP servers who don't know how to operate here. But that's only one side of problem.
Another side is the growing number of "veterans" around here who view this environment as their own personal venue for acting out a melodrama based around their character, instead of playing a role that can actually generate roleplaying from other people.
This isn't an "acting" server or a "character development" server, or a "creative writing" server. It is a roleplaying server.
In a roleplaying environment your character funtions in a role that others can quickly and easily understand and react to, not a character that requires an hour of reading through fiction to understand. You can break it down to the simple roleplaying that little kids do of cops and robbers, although in Freelancer the faction affiliations make it far more complicated and interesting.
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.
But you're right about one thing, Baconsoda : nothing we write here really matters, because the ones who need to learn from it aren't reading it (and 9 out of 10 who will read what I wrote won't understand it), and actually I say kudos to them for not reading this stuff. The only thing that might kill Disco is the endless forum-obsession that too many people have, and it isn't the Roleplaying forum that people are obsessed with. It's the obsession with arguing, ego-stroking, showing off, and outcompeting each other in who can post the stupidest flood topic that is really detracting from what could be a rather vibrant roleplaying environment. But then, I doubt even 10% of the population of this server is here for roleplaying anyway. It's blatantly apparent that the self-proclaimed "RP-lovers" aren't. Most can't even define the term, as the responses to this post are about to demonstrate.
The way I look at it is, that this server is an evolving thing, and it has not come close to reaching maturity yet. Along the way there are growing pains, and old ways have to be shed in order for newer, better ways to fulfill their potential. All in all, I don't see new players as so much of the problem as the older players who think they know it all and refuse to adapt to a changing environment because they'd rather protect their turf than chart the unknown. Fortunately for me, I prefer to learn and adapt. Unfortunately for them, I've got my hands on a sickle and harvest time is coming.
And Spear, it's been far too long since you missile spammed me. I'm going hunting for you old buddy. I could use a good shalaking that I'd actually enjoy and could learn from.
So when I ask someone what their faction tag means in roleplay, do I deserve a roleplay response, not "//read forumz" ?
When I use a Raven's Talon with Red Hessian weaponry and a Freelancer ID, with Red Hessian Tag, am I really a more legitimate roleplayer than these prolific writers, heirs to Tolstoy, perhaps, since I can explain what I do in a sentence and it makes sense?
When I state that what is written in the forums does not apply ingame, am I truly right?
Am I really a better player for attacking with a few words, as my role would suggest, rather than sit at my computer for hours typing stories no one gives a flying f*ck about?
