OR, they hug their guns closer and are even more willing to shoot anything that moves. Which, let's be honest, is the more likely outcome of such.
What the hell is with you and guns? It's a frontier, people HAVE guns because, in the past, people were shot and killed a LOT. Right now RP is boring because Council Space is safe and secure. The only killings that have happened recently were those cultists, and that was a given. They were part of a group that murdered billions, so they aren't going to receive a warm welcome in any way. What did you expect? People were going to be INTRUIGED by them, and ask questions? The only way to make RP interesting again is to add a struggle for life. Make it so people aren't gunning to fight eachother, but are looking to one another for support. But yes, space pirates and bandits mean guns will be at people's sides. It's just a given.
Not sure why you're bringing up the cultists but okay. And no, people in the past didn't look to each other for support way before council space. Why would they start now? People only care to increase their selfish rp aspects without taking in the effects it can have on the ENTIRE community.
Now now it isn't good to generalize the community as whole. It's like saying all Asians are smart. And I'm pretty dumb. From my experience people did look to each other for support. This was the time of NC and the Outcasts. There were wars that happened and a colony to defend. Citizens of the colony fought to defend it with one another and even went about planning how to fight against the threats. Then later came Opportunity/Port Last and the Blackfang. The massive invasion became a great part of a lot of people and rescue efforts were made to save each person stuck in the crossfire. There were articles about it. Colonies were successful. Why? Because of the different factions that accompanied them. The Order, USAF, The Outcasts, RA, ICIA, Dionaea. Factions now are just groups that barely last and barely manage to keep themselves afloat. It's not that people only care about increasing their own rp aspects, it's that there aren't enough people to do things anymore. And people aren't putting in the effort to make things happen. And here's why. We're all stingy. Critics of RP. When something happens it just can't fly. A person has something happening on the server? Well, why are they having it? Did they get it approved? Do they have the funds to do it? Wow, now they're pulling some shit. Do you really think you can do that? This can't happen. That can't happen. Of course, I'm not saying break rules or don't report. I'm saying we could all do with being looser and enjoying our time together to make a fun experience. And not judge and rule over everything. Look at us. We're all old players arguing. Where are the new players? I think we scare them and that's reasonable. I'd be scared too. We could all do with something revitalizing. No guns and survival seem to be what's talked about here. Why not consider sports or theme parks? Make friends? At least then people would be walking around.
Now, on the terms of factions like The Outcasts, that's why people are so paranoid when anyone does anything. We all remember the... Situations that arose because of them. However that doesn't mean we need to smother every single attempt at RP that happens out of fear of powergaming or somesuch. Yes, people will powergame, and if it happens you report it, but don't just start strangling any attempt at RP just because someone didn't call out every specific detail of their action to ensure it's believable. Give some wiggle room, have some fun. So basically, I agree.
It all boils down to communication, finding people who enjoy the story you are trying to write, and remembering your character itself is your most important storytelling tool. With as few people as there are around, it is especially important to openly communicate and arrange times when RP is more likely to be found at certain locations. I've gotten more enjoyment in Starbound RP from talking about the weather with interesting characters than from war RP, crime RP, and being stabbed by someone over a can of beans in dystopian RP put together. Creating more IC violence will not promote characters interacting with everyone they meet in a friendly manner.
Perhaps this may be a few days late, and even a fair couple dollars short but.. For me, the issue in this whole Freaky Friday-esque character swap is a rather simple one. I don't want to hand over the license to any of my character's stories to a bad writer. It has nothing to do with contradictory views or personalities or what not with whomever I might hand my characters to, I just don't want anyone to write in my character's names poorly.
Yes, I don't think the character swap is the solution here, my view is the issue is that there's nothing going on in Antares. Nothing to talk about or get involved in, no events or conflict.
My view, whether anyone was wondering, is largely in line with smokes. Colony's are the stage and the factions present the conflict and accompanying story, the actors. Otherwise you just get BaRP. The reason why we were able to do so many cool things before is because we had the numbers so that, even if a majority of the server wasn't involved, you'd still have a solid 10 people involved. Now, 10 people IS the majority, and of those people everyone has cliqued off and is quick to disregard anyone who may try to wiggle in. This is exacerbated by those who join every single faction and colony. Since they're everywhere, it detracts from their commitment to any one group. The size of our server kind of demands that. Honestly, while I would never support one hub world because 20 people on one planet can be crazy, it's the only way this server could stay afloat. People are too split up, trying to do their own thing and there just aren't the numbers. I would almost suggest just making a council hub planet and have that be the server until such a time that the population explodes back to 50+. Otherwise there's never going to be anything substantial. We're still working towards getting the mega dungeon up, albeit halfheartedly. I think people should get more involved with the forums, since the forums are the best way to get a sense of how active the community is.
We need more involvement in general. As you said, everyone is cliqued away, and it's feeling like a repeat of the summer of 2014, where everyone would be in their little groups on a private colony, and RP pretty much stagnated to "whoever is in your social circle" instead of people branching out and interacting. We need more players first off, because we can't meet any other goals if we only have 3-6 people around at any given moment. And once we get more numbers, then we need to work on faction activity, events, conflict, some kind of substance that adds to the atmosphere and gives people something to talk about or get involved in. So yes, goal #1 is to get people in, be it old folks coming back or new players, doesn't matter which, but we need more people who are good RPers.
This. Right here. The social groups of players who come together really irritate me. They don't want to add any new people into them while if a player in that group has their character leave or die or whatever, they can make a new character and be quickly back in that IC group. This is not good RP, this is quite near the bottom right next to Bar RP.
Exactly. Factions need weight and power, colonies need to have some significance and value, and most importantly of all, character lives need to MATTER, not just be throwaways where you can make a new guy and jump right back into place.
This is why I try not to get to know many people in this community. I don't want to create a social group but be afraid to add in new people. HOWEVER, if I did make a social group I wouldn't be afraid to add new people and give anyone a chance, unless it was like an ic reason where the person killed a bunch of people or something but beyond that I would. TL;DR (I know it wasn't long but to summarize it) Social groups that make private colonies to get away from everyone is kind of dumb.
It would probably help to settle on which interpretation of roleplay we are hoping to revitalize here. Is it roleplay where players pick a role like "chaotic good bounty hunter" or "lawful evil doctor" and do their best to fill their selected role in a group? Because heftier colonies and factions would improve this style of roleplay by giving characters more things to do for their role. It would also work with the character swap idea in the same way as people swapping hats for a day. Are we talking roll play where people use dice to decide how an event will turn out or how their characters will behave? Again, swapping characters here is like swapping hats for a day, and heftier colony and faction rp would just be more opportunities to roll the dice. Or are we talking about roleplay where players act out their character, with all of the flaws, personality, and memories? This kind of roleplay doesn't really care about big factions or colonies impacting the sector, because it works wherever two or more interesting characters bump into each other and do stuff. If this is the kind of roleplay we want to revitalize, it seems like the best course would be to increase the frequency of interesting characters bumping into each other. It is also a horrible choice for character swapping with IC consequences because it is extremely hard to mimic another player's character accurately in this style of roleplay. Swapping characters in a non-canon environment with friends can be very fun however, and you may even discover something new about your character through their interpretation of it. The single, primary colony idea is a decent idea, but we don't seem to get it quite right when we try it here in Antares. The primary colony needs to offer the freedom to create and the diversity of roleplay environments personal colonies already offer if it is to have any hope of attracting the majority of the playerbase on a regular basis.
I would never, ever support dice. Only as a last resort would I go to the dice. The first and third style seem to work together a bit. We had a nice population spike immediately after the update, but it has inevitably died down.
