[sarah-mari]

i was just thinking about past fm/events that i have participated in....in doing so i realized that the most fun i ever had in Jumpgate rp event/fm was the corp wars.......i had lots of fun in this event because i was doing the only thing i am good at hauling. I do not do many rp events because they usually require pvp.....and im just not good at that on the other hand this event/fm required that pvp and haulers work together on a server wide scale which was freaking cool ......that is just my opinion i hope Jumpgate Evolution has more of this kind of stufi ran across a post from fence that some of u guys might find interesting to reead.
You asked for it...

Let me preface this grand novella by pointing out that we as players can only guess at what resources (both money which also = time and GM tools) that both NetDevil and Themis have available to help us create a fun Jumpgate. My guess is that we would all be shocked into embarrassed silence if we ever found out. It’s easy for us to armchair quarterback this thing. But it’s also easy for the GMs to use low resources as a copout for not utilizing the mechanics they have to the fullest. Hopefully with more threads like these, we can find some common ground.

I don’t claim to have invented all of these ideas. I don’t claim that Themis/ND have not used some of these methods in the past. I merely claim to be the first to synthesize them all into a single gargantuan post (or 2 depending on the forum’s text limit). I’m a big fan of making due with what you have AND what you can change, so let’s get to it...

Sents:

• Any foe that can simply run and recharge at will will be hated by players. Look at how most pilots feel the Intensity is over the top in this area, then multiply that by a factor of 10 for those annoying 500-900v sents with sz4 or better shielding and the T/M and profile of a Gust. A smartly flown sent should really never die, ever.

Drones:

• GM spawning drones to “escort” their Sent attacks was a long asked for feature. In the Sent fights I’ve joined recently, it felt that high end drones were a tad over used. Though any vet can kill a c6 without even taking much shield damage, killing your first c6 is a huge step. Lower level drone control would provide a task for non-uber pilots.

• Highly uber/tiny drones like Kraks, Phocs, Stings and higher are really tough to deal with in any numbers above 1. Combine that with instant flux dumps when someone docks/jumps/dies, and Drones can get out of hand in a hurry.
  
  Drones are a super tool--one we asked for--that can become unpopular from overuse very easily. A lot of pilots will resent the fact that they died because a GM typed /ai /ai /ai /ai on them. Hopefully Istvan’s pending flux changes will help in this area as well with better ai (not more ai...not stupidly fast ai ships).

Infests:

• Tactical infests is something many have been preaching since infests first appeared (and required first hundreds of torps then hundreds of nukes). I'm very happy to see you agree with this philosophy.

• Removing nukes from smaller ships did fix some pvp issues, however I think maybe we've swung too far in the direction of limiting nuke firing capacity. Fighters cannot fire nukes. HFs can only fire one. A tow has now become the nuking vessel of choice since it can fire 2 and can carry a lot in cargo and dock/reload at a POS much faster than a bomber can fly back to a station with nukes and reload it’s 3-4 nukes (unless they happen to be working together, which is the ideal I suppose). I realize this is a ND issue, not a Themis one, but nukes directly impact your ability to roleplay with infestations.
  
  But, living with the current conditions, I would say an infest should be no stronger than 10-12 nukes for current online numbers. Very good work by whoever made the decision (Istvan?) to have nuke hits pay 50k when nukes only cost 75k. Nukes have recently gone up to 110k, I would like to see the bonus go up as well. Money sinks are a cause of resentment, no matter how many vets complain about the money glut in the post-farming econ. (“While I like to rant about there is too much money in Jumpgate in general, I am still very hesitant to waste my money nuking infests...but I'll gladly volunteer some of New Dawn's money.” Get it?)
  
  Also, the 250k credit bonus for killing an infest actually lets you break even or get ahead sometimes in the nuke game. But only 1 pilot can kill an infest which is another plug for many small infests as opposed to fewer tougher ones.
  
  Several pilots I know of have realized that the Sents are actively infesting jumpgates now. This is great to see, and has been preached for a long time too. (I believe a Themis GM once hinted that the infest tools were not user friendly enough at the time. Glad to see that has apparently changed.)

T7:

• IIRC, the T7 are the only ones we have been told that can "die" to a nuke. They are the only ones with proper names. I suppose other sents could die, but we would never know it since all we see is "c9 kraken". The T7 storyline was one of Moll's strengths. Hopefully it can be picked back up.

TRI Enforcers/Shuttles:

• Copy/paste the first Sent paragraph about fleeing at will.

• Add to that the rarity we see them and the raw number of anti-TRI pilots (moreso in the past), plus the large number of SIM jockeys looking for a challenge (as opposed to pure RPers) PLUS the fact that TRI doesn't bounty you if you rip their ships and you've got a recipe for lots of pilots ganking the hell out of TRI ships on sight.
  
  I suggest giving a bounty in all 3 TRI factions for an Enforcer rip. And get them in space a lot more so they aren't seen as such a rare challenge.
  
  TRI having such amazingly uber ship technology (1000v+ cruise IIRC) while we dottle around at 450v cruise sure does piss off factional pilots both ICly and OOCly.

Consequences:

• Bad science aside, when people knew the conflux missiles were damaging station stocks, many dropped pvp disputes and fought Sents together. Some who are sick of the way Sents have been used in the past ignore them and go about their business.

• People are willing to shrug off a lot of junk science for the sake of fun and telling an entertaining story. However, using the same mechanic of hitting station stocks right after the huge station shield upgrade FM (thereby instantly negating the effects of all that FM work) was very demoralizing.
  
  Stopping production of an item is a fine plot device. But you can't go over the top like the FF production freeze that lasted forfreakingever. Using an FM to fix it is an excellent idea, but more on FMs later. BTW, fighting against station drones around Aman was a real treat. I would love to see intelligent station drone battles every once in a while.
  
  Players DO need to realize that many desired consequences such as a change of factional ownership of a sector would have to be hard coded and agreed to by the EU's MG crew. If changing sector ownership were made into a dynamic GM tool, that would be way cool.
  
  Even building construction/destruction requires ND, and not Themis GM intervention, I believe. But POS destruction does not. I'm excited to see if we can really pull it off well in the pending Hyp RP (should the Quants ever find the silly thing).
  
  Destroying the old Hyperial Transceiver was a real hoot for the Quant factionalists. I wish there were more buildings pilots could kill. I recall a great Oct pilot outcry against their own FM of building a repair yard in Diluted Reaches. It included them actually torping it after the FM was finished by mostly non-Oct factionalists. But no GMs of the time would pick up and run with that storyline either during the FM or afterwards.

[sarah-mari]

FMs: I love the FM. It oozes with untapped RP potential.

• Hopefully Themis GMs can control FMs and it does not require ND involvement. If not, that should be high priority on the ND to-do list. A rather lot of players are not just SIM jockeys and are attracted to good storytelling where they can be a part of the story. However, 5 lengthy building FMs in a row does not make a storyline that I want to be a part of.
• Faction Missions do not have to require a week/month's work every time. I would really like to see some short run FMs that don't build a building (maybe as high even as 2% progress per mission). Buildings are great FMs (I love seeing the building actually pieced together in real time as the mission advances), but they are lengthy (logically so) and need to be mixed in with non-building FMs too, all of which are then integrated into a storyline using TRINN.
• RPCs could build POSes used as other things like science labs, conflux containment centers, listening outposts, public advance fluxing repair bases in Pulsar, TRI Enforcer outposts, corporate facilities later used for espionage, etc. These POSes could be “built” using short term FMs (couple of hours). Have the RPC keep an eye on the mission completion percentage and install a new module every 10% or so. Then invite all of the FMers out to the POS for an Oct Lite to celebrate the grand opening.
• Remember that online numbers are stupidly low right now when you set completion percentages. There is nothing at all wrong with Sents killing off Guzzie production at OP that requires a 2 day cargo FM to repair.
• In the spirit of cooperation, there could very easily be complimentary FMs. For instance, an FM to Wake that calls for items produced at QC, an FM to OP that calls for items produced at Wake, and an FM to QC that calls for items produced at OP all running concurrently (especially once FM commods get eaten by the station). And especially after Sents trash all 3 stations the night before and they all need each other’s stuff to make repairs.
• Use FMs for Recon and spying. Have a QC FM that is a Patrol mission of Hyperial sectors. It would need to pay very well and be fairly short due to the high flight time required for each mission (half hour at least I'd say). Have the FM text ask for the pilots to use a BCU and be HG. We all know Patrol mission mechanics would not require it, but use the text to ask for it anyway. Then you could have rival factions doing Recon FMs in the same area. Again ask for beacon control.
• Alternately, you could have rival factions doing Recon FMs that are based on Scouting missions. Take photos of GBS, or scan the anom in Lesser Arm. Rival factionalists could blockade the target from each other. They would fight over use of LL or GBS as a staging area. First faction to complete their FM gets a lot of pride and TRINN pimping and perhaps some political advantage...or maybe a 25% completion head start on the next building FM.
• MAKE USE OF UNREG to build FM driven conflicts that don't get screwed up by the civ/HG tag system. Sort of hard for blockade runners to whine on the forums about a civ rip if it's unreg. Sort of hard to encourage people to join your RP when they have to take a bounty to “win” it.
• Make use of the anomalies that litter space. Have the Sents base their attacks out of a particular anom for a while, say Outskirts. Then set an FM to scan that anom. Once complete, reveal a way to destroy that strain of Sent (nuke the sent, use theifs, kill them before they can leave Outskirts, nuke the anom, use RBs*, use insight/burglars, require LF’s to really kill it dead so it doesn’t respawn again, etc.).
  
  *I once saw an idea someone posted on using RBs against sents. I honestly don’t recall which pilot posted it. It went something like this: have your sents deep space and shoot each other to very low armor (or possibly use the POS 0% armor/fuel on death issue). Enable admin shields on the sents. Have the pilots use specially tuned RBs (oh you had to build those with a FM and some other RPC missions earlier) to affect them. Use slow, large sents. Once their armor is up to 100%, then turn off admin shields so only after the RB’s succeed can then pilots kill those sents. Explain that TRI modulated the pilots’ radars (using a mission critical craft sitting in the beac) to display not armor, but sent resistance which the special RBs had to break. Again, junk science is not so bad when it’s fun.
• Make use of the debris that litters space. There is a ton of junk floating around out there that is oozing with RP potential. One (1) sector of it has been officially explained: GVB by Brother_Io. Set up some FMs to Patrol that sector and some RPC missions to scan the debris. Fill in some of Jumpgate’s missing backstory using the debris FMs as a catalyst.
• New stuff FMs. Episode 2 was the real primetime for this, but I’m sure some new stuff will be introduced eventually. New/changed gear/commod FMs need to be immersed in TRINN storyline. Why did the price of nukes and instigators just change? Why did MatCons vanish? Create some RPC courier and escort missions that will bump or lower a faction’s FM percentage by 5 or 10%.
• Corporate Espionage FMs need sprinkled in the mix as well. Don’t you think it really cheeses the Octs that the sz5 mining laser is built only by Quants? A series of FMs and RPC missions could bring production of a rival to the Prospector built by Octave Prop. Labs (possibly by a CP, which takes another FM to build).
  
  Or perhaps T&P could steal some Venurian Prospecting tech to upgrade their (joke-of-a) sz1 Extractor ML into something useful for their noobs who are stuck in sz1 gunned ships until level 9. Sounds like some scouting and cargo FMs coupled with some RPC driven cloak and dagger stuff to me.
  
  Mining lasers is just one example of the equipment theft that could happen every once in a while. I realize that Themis cannot direct equipment manufacture, but surely ND could paint a few items another faction’s color and give them a new name for use in good storytelling.
• TRI “FM” missions are really rare. It would be good if TRI was more of a factor in our daily lives. TRI FMs could be tied to the Conflux storyline very easily since the flux war affects everyone.
  
  TRI renovated the unreg stations and owns them. Pick a mission type and set it to an unreg station destination and you’ve instantly created an RP conflict opportunity for anti-TRI and pro-TRI groups.

RPCs:

• We really need some RPCs visible in space from time to time. They can even be fairly minor characters who just log in and fly the FM for a while or give out some clandestine courier missions to whoever is present at the station. Have 2 RPCs in 2 different stations passing messages back and forth using couriers. If no one is in station, hang out for a few minutes in f5:chat and then offer the job there.
  
  I know the PoGBS debacle cannot be repeated. But the lesson learned there may not be that players should not be RPCs, but rather it may be instead that players should not be given accounts with any additional powers (i.e. just regular accounts unlike the PoGBS who could /home before the feature was introduced). When I first saw Bengaley’s STTC field inspector RP, I really was hoping he was an RPC playing a low level bureaucrat who would be popping into space now and again to...well, inspect things. I propose that many reliable vet players would fly a minor RPC once a week if given the chance.

[sarah-mari]

My Hyp Geneticist storyline:

• First, thank you all for the very kind words. So many of you have “name dropped” about me in recent threads...it really does mean a lot to me. I don’t need a medal. After all, “I’m just a newsman, privacy broker, and a hired messenger for a few powerful Hyperian groups. I have no idea what you’re talking about if you think I’m setting up all this conflict personally.”
  
  I designed this storyline around the idea that any GM support I get will be a bonus, not a requirement. Because frankly, I and my friends have been told “no” so many times in so many different accounts, it’s not even funny. I have asked for a few things from the GMs. Some of them are still pending, some of them may be mechanically impossible at this point (they are checking), and some of them I have thought up better ways of doing since first asking. I have invited the HSS to join the fray with both GM_K and GM_O. Hopefully they will. The way I have been running the UUNN, I understand that it makes it tough for TRINN to pickup on any of my storyline that’s not just a reprint. I understand that real RPCs may be hesitant to comment for fear of stepping on my storyline’s toes.
  
  About timeframes...I’ve always thought that the RP that no one knows about may as well not happen. I’ve always thought that RP events should be fairly well known beforehand so people can set their TiVo and plan to attend, both opposing sides. Now that I’m in the middle of it, I’m finding it tough on some Operations to confine timeframes. And I find myself using a lot of clandestine couriers (but also using spies and scanners to try to help both sides learn about them). But it’s tough. If I were to open up the POS sector search OP to any time, it would be accomplished during quiet hours by 2-3 pilots flying civ and totally unopposed.
  
  I have used some arty requirements to one OP on each side to help include the non-pvpers and some cargo scavenger hunt type stuff. I’ve got a rather lot of singleton couriers running about that no one has really caught on to yet (even though I’ve also hired quite a few pilots to scan for them and suggested to each side a couple of times to use scanners!). But my main preference and purpose is to create conflict for larger groups that at least feels like it has some real meaning and some real consequences.
  
  There is a real POS, and I’ve been a little disappointed that the Quants have not even tried finding it on their own. But that’s OK because next I’m going to force them to search for it before we can move on. The POS’s final defense or destruction is what sparked this entire storyarc. It all began with “can I destroy a POS and make it fun and somewhat decent RP?” When/If you see that POS go *poof* in front of you, you’ll know you caused it (or prevented it). That’s realspace consequences.
  
  And thanks to nuke splash damage, I now have a perfect mechanic for “scoring” the POS destruction finale. I’ll just /home the POS and hire someone to watch my back and make sure that none of my ship’s damage is from someone cheating by shooting me directly. If I die, the POS dies seconds later right in front those nuking it. If I don’t die, the defenders will see my damage level as a meter for how close the fight really was (and we’ll later have an denouement OP that explains why the Quants will gladly give up trying to destroy it). I see the splash damage mechanic as one with a ton of viable applications...especially if you are a GM and are cloaked and are sitting by an anomaly/beacon/jumpgate/building/debris/artifact that needs nuking for some fun reason.
  
  As I said, I’m not opposed to using a little flaky science. You may not like that nukes can kill a POS. Perhaps I failed to mention that those attacking the station will need to take out it’s Phase Shielding first so the nukes will even have an effect. Sounds like a preceding OP to me.
  
  If anything I’ve said in this post tips you off as to the identity of my primary account(s), please keep it to yourself (or send me a PM and we can laugh about it). Fence can only operate anonymously and independently (see the OOC comment in the thread linked in my sig), and I swear his info does not get shared.

PJG syndrom:

• One of a lot of people’s favorite thing about PJG was the ability of real pilots to comment directly on the TRINN syndicated there. You got to see all sides of the issue from the pilots comments themselves. Recently, TRINN articles have been containing links to corresponding jossh forum threads. This needs to continue. Some of those threads may be mostly ignored, but many will get lively if the feature is retained long enough for the playerbase to catch on.

Attention span:

• Remember, we are the “8 minutes of sitcom, 2 minutes of commercial, back to 8 more minutes of sitcom” generation. Letting the storyline drag on with little GM input or direction for months has been a serious failing of past RPs such as the FF production freeze and the GVB conflict.

Very few people are here because they are paid to be here. Most of us pay for the privilege of being here. A lot of us have been here for a year or three, and we are still here because we love the game’s potential. And a lot of people are frustrated because we believe that potential, even under the current mechanics, is going untapped. It’s great to see an events GM that is asking for help in this way. I hope we can really tap into the amazing potential that Jumpgate has for roleplayers and SIM jockeys alike. And I hope some of my ideas have been helpful.



Ladies and Gentlemen.....



.….Fence has left the building.

[Lordopic]

hopefully Themis GMs can control FMs and it does not require ND involvement.

haven't the time to read all of it as of yet but this is a miss print right?

[sarah-mari]

its a couple years old....but it has some good points in it for those that love to RP .

[Lordopic]

ahh i see, ill get a coffee and have a read later