Commentary: The Interstellar Alliance Roleplay

By Foxythejamie

A group with simple beginnings, as the Interstellar Alliance (ISA), the fleet has a lot to live up to. However in most categories, it fell short of that goal, quite a bit. From bad administrators, to not so good role plays, among others.

The story starts quite a bit ago, with the ISA 1.0. In ISA 1.0, if you could fit a back story to your character, it was approved. The group was small, but amazing. The sim design was something to stare in awe at as well. However things started going south after a bit of trouble.

After a few griefer attacks which left the sim completely empty, and void of items, the group's owner decided to move sims. However, little did everyone know, his plan was to also move away from ISA 1.0. He turned it into a Star Trek roleplay, with 3 ships. Thus, the ISA 2.0 was born.

That is where most of the problems had started. To start off, the group owner removed his second in command, and replaced her with someone else, who proved to be a bad choice of an administrator. He then started liquidating whole groups within his now growing group, which pretty much ended up with quite a few people leaving the role plays. After a few more weeks the groups were made entirely up of people who had never even heard of the ISA 1.0.

Well then after he and his XO (Executive Officer, or second in command) scrapped that roleplay as well. They started a new roleplay, named The 12th Expeditionary Fleet. The name might suggest that everyone on the ship will be exploring far off places, and getting into loads of trouble. Well the second of that is true. There is loads of trouble. However the trouble doesn't lie within the storyline. The trouble lies within the roleplay itself.

Let's start with my first roleplay on the sim. It started out less than well. With me being a marine, trying to keep the culture of ISA 1.0 alive, there was no seat for me. So I had asked the Captain where he wanted me to be, and he responded by simply saying "I do not care." Well that got me a bit perturbed, however I stayed for the roleplay. I am now wishing I hadn't. For in the time of 1 hr and 30 minutes, we endured a Captain who thought meta gaming, god modding, and power playing were a great way to run a story line.

For non role players, meta gaming means you use things you found out, out of character, in an in character story line. For example, if someone IMs you information, and you use that information in a roleplay. Power playing means you are not letting anyone else respond to what you are doing. This means if you just walk over to someone, punch them, and walk away. God modding is the worst one yet. This one means you are role playing with someone else's character using an rp tool.

Well the meta gaming we had to endure through that first roleplay was the Captain seeming to know exactly where the asteroids were, even when they were not on screen. He seemed to know that a ship, which had not been heard from in over 50 years, was floating in the middle of space, as well as knowing exactly where the ship was. Also seeming to know exactly which way a planet, which was over 200 Light years away, was from the abandoned ship.

The power playing we endured was the captain getting mad at a lot of characters and biting their tails, or slapping them. Then he would simply return to his seat without even waiting for a response. Of course that could have been easily overlooked.

However the worst thing being done by the captain, was an rp tool being used by him, to roleplay as other characters. He role played as my character as well as a few other, prompting some to leave mid rp.

The second roleplay I was in, was with a different Captain, this one being the owner of the group, but had pretty much the same outcome. This captain was also role playing as if he had never even seen a full episode of the great series. During the roleplay we encountered a ship with a weapon that was apparently powerful enough to pierce the shields, and then burn a hole straight through our saucer section. Yet somehow, this extremely powerful ship took one hit from a Quantum Torpedo, and was not only destroyed, it was vaporized. I am no expert in the show, but for one, I know for a fact that if something were to pierce the shields, then we'd have no shields left. Also, if something really was that powerful, it would be able to withstand an entire barrage of torpedoes. In Star Trek, ships with powerful guns are themselves powerful, and able to withstand a multitude of attacks.

All in all, I was pretty disappointed with this roleplay. In my mind they took a great theme and just soiled it.

Jamie