This post is about something I'm either really ignorant to, or something the server is missing. It will incorporate a little bit of frustration/anxiety I have about trying to fill the gap myself, and a little bit of my disagreements with the consensus to completely ignore Chucklefish's fleshed out SB lore (for gameplay). Sooo-- as a server (or at least for the people who care enough to consistently use #serious and #debate on the chat; The SB lore for 1.0 is widely unacceptable. Hoooowever, despite this, I can't really find much anything to replace it here. Not to say there isn't much an attempt to replace the lore, but it doesn't ever feel like anything is happening. There isn't really much in terms of events or storyline for the server; not much admin created or admin sanctioned-- every so often a player throws something together but... I don't personally ever see it going far, could be my own ignorance. So anyways, it just feels like we have no purpose. Where are people usually RPing? Mud, or those other settlements-- and doing what? Slice of life RP (which isn't bad, just not my particular cup of tea to get on every day to RP a coffee shop meeting or a barbershop meeting or whatever when I can barely think up a reason to visit these places in my own life. My character has to travel across the stars to this specific planet in the middle of west biscuit space to get a haircut from your store for some interaction?). Sure I can just keep making up reasons, keep making up some kind of purpose-- but it feels really stale and it's hard to get into. I don't feel like any of my actions mean anything, or that I'm contributing to anything-- especially when a random person comes along with a wealth of whatever it is someone may be missing, fulfilling all needs as simple as dropping a cheat code into the cheat console. Your clothing shop needs furs because if they don't get furs they can't make clothes and if they can't make clothes they can't sell clothes and if they don't sell clothes they can't pay rent and if they can't pay rent they can't afford whatever space they occupy or their lifestyle? Cool-- 90% of that isn't actually true and it's fabricated, and that's fine, as roleplayers, we fabricate a lot of things, but if you wait long enough you either evict yourself; which doesn't come with the same thrills or pressure if you ask me, or someone comes along to save the day with a magical box full of furs, or suddenly your ten thousand dollar debt is on them, and they'll pay it free of charge, as a gift. I hear a lot about people with kill boners, but I never see them-- and even if these people were around, it's like, there's no greater meaning to their kill boners than the boner itself(typically because people don't construct a story around it, they're in the moment, which is also fine, I can personally make a lot of RP off that if I could just find them, but once that's settled it's back to... Well, the bland stuff). So anyways. I'm used to servers coming with pots, or stories, and if admins don't make it, players make it and admins sanction it-- but I'm not seeing a lot of that here. There's no one with the authority given to them to RP an Avian armada assaulting some Apex colonies or something that players can get swept in, and feel like they're a part of something-- resting on Mud because it's a "Sanctuary" and an escape from the battles, or resting on Apedonia because it's the forward city-outpost for the Apex and their soldiers battling against the Winged Armada or whatever. There's no "Ancients" or "Ancient Artifacts" to discover to learn about the origins of the races and this "Creator," there's no discovering the threat of the tentacle monster, there's no sense of... Adventure. Especially with all the NPCs turned off (because they make slice of life difficult). Before NPCs were turned off, survival RP was a bunch more fun, as was exploratory RP. Now it just feels like endless walking through endless empty space for no reason-- and if you want a threat, you imagine they're there, beg someone to play it for you, or dual client or whatever (and that's difficult and even less interesting if you're dual-clienting against yourself or something). And maybe I have the power to do this stuff myself-- but it doesn't feel right without admin authority or admin backers, and it's... Draining to think up all that stuff, schedule/plan it, ask admins if it's okay and what's okay, and then you know, if it does get the okay; I'd like to participate in this stuff personally so it becomes pretty taxing on myself as a regular player (again, especially if I have to do something like dual-client). I guess a lot of this is what the "journal" section was made for. So you could write thrilling tales about what your character has been through-- but I personally like actually RPing through it, then writing a journal/recount afterwards. Because the interaction and the thrill is what makes the RP worthwhile, and recapping later for the nostalgia and records is what memorializes it. Rather than imagining it(or solo RPing it to the open cyber-air) and writing it out already knowing the whole story that's occurring because I've decided it (with or without the help of dice) So anyways, this post is probably pretty scattered, so I'll try to sum up a point. I personally crave a storyline, some assortment of plots that makes it feel like I'm doing something on this server other than a slice of life roleplay (that I find to be quite shallow). I would like to see more adventures, more puzzles and mazes, more traps and chance-events and all kinds of interesting scenarios to RP in. Because sitting on a bench by a fountain talking to random passer-by's about random-notsolegitimate-activity is not my particular cup of tea.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Mud's slice-of-life is gonna get old for me pretty soon. I've got a few ideas, which I might try and sum up in a thread (The Unexplained Things in the Universe) but until Mud burns that might be the norm for a while.
How about Council Space actually gets somebody wanting to encroach on their territory. Maybe its a Floran warband, maybe it's a huge corporation that decides Council Space is just perfect for their new HQ. Or maybe it's a mirror of the council only here because of its citizen's wanderlust and love of expansion. This really needs admin attention. Despite this being 'The Fringe', this region of space might as well be the local shopping mall.
How about ethical divergence which leads to hositlity. You have 6 major species with wildly different cultures beliefs and more-- this type of stuff usually leads to a lot of tension and hostility. I don't know, this all feels very mundane. Before NPCs were switched off, I could ignore it because I got to use them on HOPE and make RP events out of them. Now it's very... Eugh, bland. And I'm trying to visit colonies to break out of that blandness but it's just... Eugh, a different kind of bland, and a weirdly uncomfortable one at that. And of course, I could make some kind of antagonist to spark up some stuff, but then I expect people to treat me like I'm a dick, and really try impede the RP OOCly-- or I'll be crushedu nder the weight of myself vs an entire server (With varying degrees of resources both scarce to impossibly abundant with varying legitimacy), and even if all goes well there's still the admin authority from before that I would feel a constant need to attain less it's kinda just me stepping on people's toes and doing stuff I probably shouldn't until an admin legitimizes me causing OOC tension over IC tension and it's... Eugh. The problem with player villainry, is that people get really attached to certain things, and the only way to affect them is to target those things... Which they don't want targeted, which usually leads to the wrong kind of hostility and tension (unless admins are there every step of the way)
I mean, it's all personal preference. I haven't really had any bland times on Mud but maybe that's because a leadership position is always interesting.
Long (probably 90% filler) post incoming. As a wiki editor, the lore being introduced in 1.0 is to basically be completely disregarded. There's parts we might keep, but the bulk of things -- like the Protectorate -- are pretty bad writing and will be ignored. We're actually working on official server lore, but it's admittedly very slow, and I personally would apologize for how long this has taken. Still, while we don't have the lore officially in place yet, there's a few threads in the lore submissions area that would provide a good lot of solid information on the different races. A lot of the posts in lore submissions are completed, they just need to be put into the not-yet-released official lore section. And onto the topic at hand, slice-of-life is a different speed of roleplay when compared to a big dramatic plotline or some combat RP. It's usually subtle, calm, and can certainly get tiring after a long time doing it. However, I feel it's still a very important part of roleplay, as it's really the only way your character will make friends and connections, which may lead into stories of their own. While these stories aren't usually climactic space-battles between giant factions or something, small stories between characters can be fun and interesting in their own right. Aaand speaking about people with assloads of money coming along to solve your problems, that's basically the definition of poor roleplay. Asspulling (which i'm not certain on but there's probably rules against) and tossing the things you've bullshitted to other people is terrible, but i've hardly seen any of it on the server. If you're worried about asspulling and poor roleplay, I don't think there's much of that here. Even if you stumble upon it, feel free to report the situation, staff is more than happy to sort these things out. Their job is to ensure the quality of roleplay as well as enforce the rules. Now, the thing about plots is that we're a completely player controlled server. The players hold all the power in directing the setting, lore... other things, but i'm too dumb to think of said things right now. The admins are simply there to regulate what we do, ensure we're keeping roleplay quality, and make sure we're not breaking the rules. Being completely player controlled, that means that anyone can start up some company, loan shark people, kidnap, ect. It's your plot to make, and it's usually just a simple question to a staff member as to whether you can do it. What I will advise against, however, is trying to make a server-wide plot that everyone will partake in. If your plot is about murder and killing, and a player doesn't want to roleplay that, it basically means that they've gotta play the sidelines and not partake in the plotline and such. You can never make everyone happy during a server-wide story, so I think it's just a bad idea to attempt them. Don't take that the wrong way, though. I'm not trying to discourage people from making meaningful, impactful events on the server and such, just don't try to shoehorn them in to affect every single character or every single colony. Which now that I re-read your post, you totally understood this already. Having a 'sanctuary' would probably be just fine, so basically this whole blab was for naught. This has probably just been worthless rambling, but i'll try to sum it up into a point here. The power is all in your and your fellow player's hands. It really doesn't take as much effort as you think to get things admin approved, and they're admittedly almost too lenient with what they let get past. You can make puzzle events, you can create a story about a power struggle between two large factions. I understand your concerns about having to gamemaster these events and not being able to participate yourself, but you're certainly able to make ways to enjoy your own events. And please, don't feel like making an antagonist is a bad and tiring thing to do. If people attack you oocly for playing an antagonist, that's not cool, and you could certainly report them to staff. Finally, I think you might be missing out on the subtle plotlines going on around the server. There's plenty of tiny stories you could jump in on, but even if you don't wanna, you've still got the power to make your own stories.
I agree for the most part, but I'd like to add exciting space battles make the times of calm even more rewarding. My free-time will have all but evaporated by September, but I would really enjoy writing something up. I'd like to move away from the 'evil space sorcerer' kind of villain since many of them are one-dimensional. I'd rather have an thesis and an antithesis. Maybe wealthy corporations vs the under-trodden working class. Maybe there's a group of people trying to declare independence from the Council. Either way, after these conflicts the outcome is a stronger server, a synthesis.
There's also the matter of things the players start have to be built up. An asspull for villainry and story/substance is still an asspull nonetheless. And even if people enjoyed it, it can easily be ruined by someone disagreeing hard enough and complaining that suddenly there's some guy with intentions nefarious to said player, and has come out of nowhere with the power to enact those intentions.
Didn't OE have some like events going on in the background? A storyline? Spoiler: like these Would be somewhat neat.
