except the entire community doesn't all recognise the major "cross community" plots. there are always pockets who will refuse to aknowledge a particuler storyline, or in game event. Hell, there were even some who ignored the rikti invasion.
There IS no magical full server accepted lore, just what is accepted by the majority.
Union is however a much smaller server, and now domminated by a handfull of cliques, there is some common ground between them, but would you count what is cannon for the GGers to be cannon for, say, the Gaijin's who are newer to the game and probably dont even know certain community events happened? Is Corps lore fully accepted by the Court?
It seems unlikely.
Virtue on the other hand is a far more populated server, with a lot higher percentage of roleplayers. Trying to keep every roleplayer in concensus would be nigh on impossible.
Trying to get 100 roleplayers to agree on something is hard, imagine trying that with 4 or 5 times as many, all on at different time zones from LA to Australia.
Now, taking that into account, if Union and Virtue were to be merged, Union's accepted majority view lore now becomes a minority, and no different than any line of lore accepted by any other of Virtue's cliques.
Just an observation, US Forum RP seems to benefit from it's stricter GM'ing (Golden Eagle High, for example, which I'm enjoying immensely) whereas I can never keep going long with the majority of EU plots, simply because they lack said structure, and invariably end up with people getting annoyed with one another.
I do kind of wish that it was easier to organise big RP events that would involve lots of people, and get remembered for time to come...but hey, cats and herding eh? 
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Just come up with a plot that will interest a lot of people and that they can get into easily.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I do kind of wish that it was easier to organise big RP events that would involve lots of people, and get remembered for time to come...but hey, cats and herding eh?
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How about everyone is turned into a bird?
Went to bed a man, woke up a pigeon.
Well, I did try starting a good old war Union side 
that, sadly, didn't go through. I guess it might be easier now with AE, given I know PvP isn't everyones cup of tea (this was originally planned before I13, which might explain the fall through)
But, hmm...-plots-
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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This is true, even within the EU community there were people who ignored the Requiem War, the Chronodyne plot and have ignore pretty much every big event that's happened because they feel it'd interupt things down at the Golden Girl statue.
I still find it amazingly silly that there were people who tried to actively ignore a ingame canon event which was happening them around them ("nope, those Rikti bombers totally aren't there..." "no every else isn't going into combat mode and teaming to defeat those non-existent teleporting Rikti...").
The heroes for people plotline got completely blown out of all preportion because some people took great offence at how an otherwise quite sweet petition (about how the people of Paragon should recognise the hard work of the non-super powered emergency services such as the regular PPD and a one day holiday put aside to recognise them) was written because it apparently made heroes out to be useless (which wasn't it's intent at all).
It's probably why such events are incredibly hard/impossible to organise US side as mentioned it'd be like herding cats.
Alpha I recognise the pain, I don't even know who the big hitters are in regards the SGs/VGs on Virtue, there's a crapton of smaller ones but very few big overarching organisations like the Corporation, Unity Vigil etc.
Honestly? I've never RPed on Virtue; almost all of my roleplaying has been on the forums, with a very small amount in-game with friends on Protector. So you have to factor in the odd people like me, where we simply don't RP in-game very much, if at all.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
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Neither do a lot of the North Americans who frequent this section. Those folks are even further a realm unto themselves.| I don't even know who the big hitters are in regards the SGs/VGs on Virtue |
From what I've seen of a lot of the North American threads, most of these are more or less "exhibitions" of the characters. Most of the roleplayers here don't seem to consider what their characters are doing in the threads to have that strong a bearing on their characters' lives.
The idea that each thread might actually have some profound impact on a character's life is a surprisingly rare occurrence. It didn't help that we had players who seemed poised to intentionally derail any plotline to bring the adventure over to "their world" and make their characters central antagonists or plot points, regardless of what the game master is doing.
I have other, harsher criticisms, but I've already vented enough about them elsewhere.
I will make this one clear, though: For the North American roleplaying threads, players never really get much chance to expand on their characters' lives. They have the mission and they get it done. The few times we've had other threads with a more conversational tone, they suffered the afore-mentioned derailment.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
-looks at his plans for war and sighs wistfully-
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I can't speak for everyone, but I know that's certainly not true with the spackle of regular RPers I hang around with here. Our 'universe' spans across multiple threads as well as into the game, and things that happen in one most certainly affect the others.|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
While on the US side of things everything is less coherent and a lot more hodgepodge, there is no real shared universe outside of the RP threads that exist on the forums and each one is a universe unto itself. This is probably why each one of them is a long thread that's been going on for years, that thread is it's own RP universe set aside from anything ingame. The Virtueverse doesn't refer to a universe but merely the wiki.
This is probably due to the much larger numbers of RPers around. I've noticed that the threads in the forums are much more strictly GM'd due to the sheer number of people whereas the EU RP threads are much more loose and open because everybody knowns everybody and can trust one another. US players have had to rely on the forums for their big ongoing plots whereas in the EU, everything both ingame and forums is just one big ongoing plot. |
Granted, compared to the US server population we're a very small group, but amongst ourselves we've got a consistent, ongoing structure of events. We have our famous, our infamous, our dead, etc. - and amongst ourselves, everyone knows about them and what they've done in the same fashion as the Unionverse deal. It's just that there's a whole lot more people on this side of the pond, so it's all got a lot less reach across the playerbase.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Mm, indeed, Devious. That's one thing I forgot about...
You guys have Unionverse and Galaxy Girl's Skirt, we have the Whitmoore Apartments, Blakmoore Safehouse (R.I.P.) and Chateau Rouge. Essentially similar concepts, in that there are a large number of players contributing to long, over-arching storylines.
However, the styles remain different. Techbot Alpha made a good point, in that we make a heavier use of "GMing," where the player who introduces the plot usually directs the events.
My one stint with European roleplayers, however, I was surprised when the events were set in motion and the major NPC (a large, psychic orca that was trying to obliterate the beach-goers) seemed to simply stop in mid-air while the players rained blows upon it. The initial presenter of the concept even utilized their own characters, but was no longer piloting the creature they'd let loose upon the roleplayers. I thought this was a little odd.
While I liked the character-driven approach, I feel there needs to be a little more control or at least a little more "NPC Behavior." If the focus remains on just the players without mention of the world we live in, then we just become a bunch of talking heads, ranting and raving about how great and incredible we are.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
In previous EU threads it was generally considered good form to let every player have ana ction before makign the bad guy respond, also there was the small matter of someone in thier first move giving the whale a Lobotomy!
And damn it Mech, I was jsut randomly speclating on the channel, what next, we post my crazy theories on what's happening Lore-wise :P
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Hey, that'd be me.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
However, the styles remain different. Techbot Alpha made a good point, in that we make a heavier use of "GMing," where the player who introduces the plot usually directs the events.
My one stint with European roleplayers, however, I was surprised when the events were set in motion and the major NPC (a large, psychic orca that was trying to obliterate the beach-goers) seemed to simply stop in mid-air while the players rained blows upon it. The initial presenter of the concept even utilized their own characters, but was no longer piloting the creature they'd let loose upon the roleplayers. I thought this was a little odd. While I liked the character-driven approach, I feel there needs to be a little more control or at least a little more "NPC Behavior." If the focus remains on just the players without mention of the world we live in, then we just become a bunch of talking heads, ranting and raving about how great and incredible we are. |
Firstly, it was a thread intended to be light hearted fun. When I had someone lobotomize it with a laser sword, it no longer -was- fun. It was then a hassle. I tried to keep up with the clusterbomb of events, couldn't, so I just decided to bow out silently.
The character that was brought in was an NPC, due to the fact that said lobotomized whale couldn't do much but float there.
Also, I was still playing the whale and the NPC, who was a body boarder/sealife zoo worker up until I gave up.
It was no longer fun, no longer enjoyable, and the way things had gone I had lost my will to RP in that topic. And I've not done any forum RP on here since, nor do I intend to. The closest I'll get now is stories related to events set in motion, such as Shadowe's appearance on a gossip show, the retribution taken by one of Shadowe's friends (Written by me) after a character's musings on the event (Written by Ravenswing) followed up by Shadowe's writing of what happened the weekday morning after that weekend.
Bad form of me to split from the RP with nary a word, yes, but I didn't want to rock the boat, and was just fed up. I roleplay for fun, and when things aren't fun, I just don't feel like roleplaying.
Account 'A Bad Day at the Beach' to inexperience dealing with large numbers of roleplayers that I haven't had much experience with, and differences in Board RP styles between game region groups.
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Also, regarding this part:
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| seemed to simply stop in mid-air while the players rained blows upon it. |
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Just to add my 2p worth here, as I was also in that thread. The whole thing was going fine until some bright spark, who's name I forget now, decided it'd be fun to lobotomize the whale, thus making the rest of the mini plot completely defunct.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
My one stint with European roleplayers, however, I was surprised when the events were set in motion and the major NPC (a large, psychic orca that was trying to obliterate the beach-goers) seemed to simply stop in mid-air while the players rained blows upon it. The initial presenter of the concept even utilized their own characters, but was no longer piloting the creature they'd let loose upon the roleplayers. I thought this was a little odd.
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Seriously, how can you RP properly when some nitwit goes and effectively kills the bad guy?
I tried to continue the thread afterwards, with a bit of righteous indignation, but the "killer" wasn't having any of it, and I gave up arguing with brick walls years ago.
So it stopped being fun, and I also bowed out. A shame really... It COULD have developed in to an interesting diversion, but it got cut short by events.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Well, my apologies, Zortel, I didn't mean any offense by using your thread as my example, it's just that it's been a bit pivotal in regards to how we NA players have felt about the Unionverse threads that keep cropping up.
See, yours was the first that didn't have that UNIONVERSE stamp slapped on it. It seemed friendly and open, and many of us NA Roleplayers jumped on it with the fervor and enthusiasm we usually bring and were dismayed when it dropped suddenly. We didn't know it was meant to be lighthearted and fun (a psychic whale trying to kill a bunch of people on the beach, of course we'd be a little overzealous...).
It was also the LAST to not have a Unionverse stamp. The European threads since then have all been Unionverse and GG's Skirt-related, so the rest of us NA Players just kind of frown at them and go "Alright, I guess that's their thing..." and move on to something else. We see those stamps and think that, since we haven't had anything to do with the events leading up to them, anything we contribute will be little more than commentary.
We've felt a little put off, to be honest. I know I have, at least. It was like we were given one chance to mingle and the rest of you guys have been terrified of involving us again. I'm not saying that's how it was (this thread is doing a fine job of clearing that up), but this section certainly seemed to have remained staunchly divided between Europeans and North Americans with the two sides ignoring one another (except in a few rare instances).
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Some points well raised there.
Regarding the Unionverse stamping, we've got a topic on the first page of this forum subsection that isn't Unionverse stamped and started by an EU'er, Bedside Manners in this case by Arctic Princess.
The reason for some of the Unionverse stamping I believe is that they coresspond directly to in game happenings on Union, say as a prologue or epilogue to in game RP. Because US Region RP'ers don't have access to EU Region RP'ers servers, and vice versa, this presents difficulties when taking into account the close ties between forum and in game RP for a section of the community.
I'll certainly admit some trepidation about the thought of open Forum RP again on here, but that's my own issue. A vastly enlarged number of RP'ers compared to what we have before, with playstyles and preferences still unknown in parts, well, I worry about messing up or getting things messed up. Not off the rails as such, but more "Oh Gribble what do I do now?!"
True, yes, perhaps I should have stamped the topic with something tasteful in bold, such as "Light hearted" or "Silver Age" or something along those lines. I just wasn't quite prepared for what unfolded.
That, really, is something among the many things for me to learn from. I don't think I'm a great RP'er, nor do I think I'm a great writer. I'm still pretty new at this (I mean, just over five years nearly now) and not a great fan of tabletop, Play by E-mail or Journal RP. Online chat/MMO RP is really my forte and comfort area. Moving out of that can be a scary experience, fraught with perils.
Only thing I can really do is try and learn from my mistakes, avoid the bigger ones and not do the same thing twice if it goes bad :P
I might try a small something at some point. Currently, I really need to focus on getting some Christmas stories and a wedding done RP/creative-wise.
(Also, no worries about offense. It's an internet defense thing :P)
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I'm pretty sure I have a good idea of who the big RP VGs and SGs are on Virtue. But dealing with them is another matter entirely.|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
...It's probably why such events are incredibly hard/impossible to organise US side as mentioned it'd be like herding cats.
Alpha I recognise the pain, I don't even know who the big hitters are in regards the SGs/VGs on Virtue, there's a crapton of smaller ones but very few big overarching organisations like the Corporation, Unity Vigil etc. |
I don't forum RP much, but my VG on Virtue has tried organizing big events with other VGs and SGs multiple times. Oh how we've tried, and had pretty much every excuse thrown back at us.
-You're too small.
-You're too big.
-Who needs other groups when you have AE stories to write?
-RPvP? What are you, crazy? / These "Yo mama!" insult fests are boring!
-What? Villains win? What are you, crazy?
-Keep RPing with you guys? Screw that, we're going to CO.
We had ONE large event work out at first (about 20 people in the Arena) and even then all but one of the opposing players dropped off the face of the earth, preventing any follow up. However, said player came back and joined us, proving to be a great player, but still.
All for hearing ideas on getting big events to work though.
Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
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Villains never win, its the comic way!|
Originally Posted by Agonus
-What? Villains win? What are you, crazy?
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They have a victory, give everyone a scare, only to be vanquished as the heroes save the day again and everything gets put back to the status quo.
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Those were the good old days of RP PvP. I tried to set one up a couple months ago and it almost worked, until DXP hit that same weekend. After the Xmas event and before Valentines, I think I'll try it again. Maybe we could plan it together Alpha. As for the EU/NA differences, reasons have already been exhausted but personally, I think it's down to the natural Unionverse/Forumverse divide. Theres not a lot you can do about that, EU and NA players can and do RP together on the Forumverse but some plots bound to the Union server will spill out to here and thats where the Unionverse tags come in. Lastly, I don't think EU forum roleplayers leave plots unGM'ed. Looks like Grey's example was a one-time mishap. Like Mechano said, we pretty much all play the game together and RP together so our threads tend to have more structural freedom, which I think is only a good thing, it encourages wild ideas and creativity. Anyway, maybe the answer to the alienting problem of EU/NA forum RP'ers is more Forumverse plots like the short-lengthed Boomtown Blues story and ongoing ones like Superhero 102. *Goes off to thought-shower* |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
-looks at his plans for war and sighs wistfully-
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Forum RP is notoriously difficult to keep updated on when you have lots of time between posts. I get to check the boards in the morning about 8:00am and then probably won't get to look at them again until 9:00 in the evening if I'm lucky. On the European forums it was possible to keep up on a plot but on a larger, more populated board, the world could have ended in 13 hours. Which is why these days I keep my forum RP to smaller groups so the updates aren't so rapid. I get stressed GMing plots for 16 people, trying to GM a board thread for maybe 10 times that would take the patience of a saint and that's patience I don't have.
Personally, I like the forum actions having in game repercussions. Forum RP is where I get to go into detail about my characters, what they look like and what they're thinking, something that simply can't be achieved in game. Maybe it's just what I'm used to.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Yeah, forum RP suffers from that problem in a big way. It's all well and good if everyone is around to keep posting; but it one person makes a post that impacts on another and then doesn't come back to thread for hours, it can kill it stone dead.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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If anything ever came of a server-list (note, list |
Originally Posted by Pious
Those were the good old days of RP PvP. I tried to set one up a couple months ago and it almost worked, until DXP hit that same weekend. After the Xmas event and before Valentines, I think I'll try it again. Maybe we could plan it together Alpha. As for the EU/NA differences, reasons have already been exhausted but personally, I think it's down to the natural Unionverse/Forumverse divide. Theres not a lot you can do about that, EU and NA players can and do RP together on the Forumverse but some plots bound to the Union server will spill out to here and thats where the Unionverse tags come in. Lastly, I don't think EU forum roleplayers leave plots unGM'ed. Looks like Grey's example was a one-time mishap. Like Mechano said, we pretty much all play the game together and RP together so our threads tend to have more structural freedom, which I think is only a good thing, it encourages wild ideas and creativity. Anyway, maybe the answer to the alienting problem of EU/NA forum RP'ers is more Forumverse plots like the short-lengthed Boomtown Blues story and ongoing ones like Superhero 102. *Goes off to thought-shower*
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) merge...It would be kinda nice to make a new server. A dedicated RP server, maybe? I've seen them in other games (although I have no idea how effective they are.)Anyway, rambling aside, the plot I had in mind did rely on a large ammount of VEATs teaming up redside, and beginning a full on invasion of Sirens Call, with the intention of winning the mini war thats going on there, before spreading into other scenarios. There was also the back-scheme of beating up the Warburg Rebels, while also laying hands on the missiles, for use in both Sirens and Bloody Bay.
Sadly, the I13 PvP changes, along with slow VG recruitment, put that on the back burner. If enough people would be interested in a general War on forums, maybe that could work out....but it would also have a lot of problems associated with it...
Ho-hum...Pity I can't bribe a Dev to start an in-game event...
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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This!|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
a large number of VEATs teaming up redside, and beginning a full on invasion of Sirens Call
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*Goes to finally make a VEAT*
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Not very, from seeing WoW. It's pretty much like Union is now. Majority of non-roleplayers, minority of roleplayers. Perhaps on say, Argent Dawn EU you'll find it a bit more like this, but then you get the greater amount of Goldshire Vampire Demon Princess of Storwmind types.| A dedicated RP server, maybe? I've seen them in other games (although I have no idea how effective they are.) |
Chaff Ratio > Wheat Ratio.
I have always wondered what starting again afresh would be like though, other than scary.
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Not ultimately winning. Just getting a minor victory (to get the ball rolling on the back and forth aspect) over the heroes is too much to ask of some of the "great and powerful" SGs out there.|
Originally Posted by Big_Lunk_NA
Villains never win, its the comic way!
They have a victory, give everyone a scare, only to be vanquished as the heroes save the day again and everything gets put back to the status quo. |
It boggles my mind that there are so many RP SGs out there that claim to be Golden and Silver Age style heroes, yet they want to respond to -any- villainous activity with a tactical nuke. And that's not even getting into the "modern" groups.
Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
I don't take any credit for this at all, it was Omega_Chiefs theory and probably quite a good one.
The reason the RP styles of both EU and US have developed differently.
The EU is a constant universe both ingame and out when we refer to the Unionverse EU players aren't just refering to the wiki, the Unionverse is our RP universe within CoH. The shorter threads which are more action packed merely represent another chapter in the Unionverse storyline.
As such we've had huge events which affect the entire RP community, Requiem's war being one, the Heroes for People scandel which divided the entire hero community being another.
This has allowed personalities to establish themselves far better than it is on the US side. Just look at the stunts Dr Mechano has been able to pull.
1) Flooding streets with a designer drug, his nemesis and three supergroups went all out to stem the flow and eventually cripple his operation so much that the Family told him they weren't going to deal it anymore because it's too much hastle.
2) Target the 3 biggest Supergroups and target the 3 biggest villain groups, launching simultaneous 'attacks' (in reality harmless pranks) on all 6 while also remotely attacking a Bruce Wayne/Batman style heroes manor and taking out it's defenses with an EMP device. The reason for doing this, to prove nobody is untouchable and that nobody should be complacent. This one took a crapload of organising and discussing with each of the SG/VGs leaders and is the one I'm most proud of.
In the EU Forum RP has ingame RP affect and viceaversa, Dr Mechano's genetically engineered daughter (who still talks to him but remains strictly on the side of good) was questioned at length ingame by the various SG members as to what he was upto next. RP VG leaders are actually incredibly wary of signing Dr Mechano up because he's a known wild card, a lot of people don't like him and they don't need the heat it would bring by having him in that group but at the same time he's a high profile villain.
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While on the US side of things everything is less coherent and a lot more hodgepodge, there is no real shared universe outside of the RP threads that exist on the forums and each one is a universe unto itself. This is probably why each one of them is a long thread that's been going on for years, that thread is it's own RP universe set aside from anything ingame. The Virtueverse doesn't refer to a universe but merely the wiki.
This is probably due to the much larger numbers of RPers around. I've noticed that the threads in the forums are much more strictly GM'd due to the sheer number of people whereas the EU RP threads are much more loose and open because everybody knowns everybody and can trust one another.
US players have had to rely on the forums for their big ongoing plots whereas in the EU, everything both ingame and forums is just one big ongoing plot.
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Once again I take no credit for this theory it was made by Omega_Chief (though I wish I had come up with it myself...curse you Omy!) but it does seem to make a hell of a lot of sense.