What is the Mix?
Discussion on Theme and Going Forward

So before and at the recent Town Hall, there was some news about new focus being put on the Mix, which I think is something that it is in dire need of. However much like the recent Guided Discussion on the Mix (which poignantly ended up dominated by topside discussion) I can't help but feel like there has been a major culture change in the game regarding the Mix over the past few years, to the point where it seems like a lot of the identity there has been forgotten or lost.

I don't think this is due to any lack of staff support for players or for plots, but rather my perception is that this is a grassroots issue: That the sheer number of major active players who have filtered through long time topside roles, and who remain there, has caused almost like an internalization of IC thematic thinking; where the Mix is something separate and down there. That there is no real authority or importance there, and all real wealth and control should flow from either the Hall or the Corporations above. That it should be content for topside, or supply roles for topside characters to retire into when they want a change of pace.

Now it is obviously the IC theme that the Mix is both openly and secretly dominated by corporate and council interests, however I think this is not healthy to have bleed into the actual gameplay because it depreciates what I would consider as the actual thematic heart of the game itself. I don't think topside on it's own supplies really any of the high tech, low life aspect that is at the core of cyberpunk, and a strong culturally distinct Mix is a necessary component of the corporate cyberpunk ecosystem; otherwise it's just authoritarian suburbia with a basement.

Now I have my own opinions on what I think the Mix should be, and what the problems are with it now, and I've suggested some ideas to move away from the current situation in other threads, but what I have also realized is that the current state of things is something like the sum of all different things players pushed for over the last three years; less of a divide, more chance for interplay with topside, everything being less punishing. I think the current state is a monkey's paw outcome of players getting what they wanted in many regards, just not necessarily to the intended effect because everyone wanted something a little different.

So to wit, and since Guided Discussions can be pretty messy to engage with on these topics, I am interested to hear what other players think the culture of the Mix should be and how it might get there from where it is?

The mix to me feels like it is soft as ever, and it seems to focus all its attention inward on its day-to-day squabbles and management. Even when there is shaking at the cage of the status quo it seems to be readily ignored or ever ridiculed and shut down by the Mix itself. That coupled with the numbers game in terms of in hands power (YES I get that it is themely for topside to be powerful but not to the point it discourages people from trying things) has stifled the Mix VS topside conflict.

I know there was some softening of it intentionally, and it needed to be, there needed to be a Mix solidarity even when Mixers might be in service gigs or -working for- the corporations. I think though that this has brought along with it a sort of peace or friendship. IRL I HATE!!! My boss, hate them to death, but I still work, I still smile politely and so on, because I want my money, that should be the attitude encouraged. But chumming up with a mixer or corpo should be considered crossing the line.

I feel like so often there are Mixer characters who do not mind the mix, do not seek change for the mix. But the Mix is a freaking shithole, people die, human trafficking, drugs, dang kids are getting openly abused in the streets (as per description text) And so many just seem entirely ok with it, or even consider it 'not so bad'. It is like this BECAUSE of topside, because of the corporations.

Ambient pop should come into play here in a big way, there are millions and millions of people who should have bubbling rage in their souls every second of the day against their oppressors. Red should be an almost constant powder keg aimed topside. But it just isn't, at all.

I don't know though; we only ever have our own limited perspective. I just feel Red sector is more Orange day by day. Not asking for Red sector to be more deadly, just asking that maybe we should consider it a huge wrathful beast with burning red eyes aimed topside that slumbers, only to be awoken by the tiniest provocation. It might encourage more cross-game interplay, I say cross-game because topside and Red feel so disjointed now they might as well be different games.

Hello, voice of the devil's advocate speaking.

There's some good points being made here. One of the things I've noticed is that there has been a steady gentrification of the mix over the years. And I would ask players that, rather than focus on what you CAN have codedly and what you DO have codedly (Example: steaks and chocolate souffles and fine wines) that instead you focus on what the mix is supposed to represent. It's an absolute shit hole, a living hell, the worst possible place to live. Because, in my opinion, that's where one of the foundations of theme needs to be.

(Please bear in mind: these are personal opinions)

-You SHOULD be crying about the injustice and inequality of the divide PUBLICLY constantly.

-You SHOULD be doing everything in your power to schmooze and cater to corporates PRIVATELY in the hopes that someday you can 'make it' and get out of literal hell.

-You SHOULD be lying, cheating, stealing and fucking(over) your chums given the chance because it's one of the only 'reliable' ways to get ahead.

-You SHOULD be doing as much illegal shit as possible to make ends meet.

-You SHOULD be acting like every meal was the last because your rat warren hole in the wall is out of nutripaste and you don't have the chyen to buy another.

-You SHOULD be trying to jockey for power in your workplace, in the club, and on the rungs of the power ladder.

-You SHOULD be doing everything you can to make it just one more day under the oppressive crush of tyrannical powers that be, be they hypercorps, street gangs, the HOJ, criminal organizations or that asshole downstairs who keeps spying on you and ratting you out.

If you are getting into the headspace that your character is tangibly struggling to survive every single day in the mix I think you will find that quite a lot of other RP will quickly fall into alignment. I am fully cognizant that the mix is safer than ever, and that the mechanical reality is that it is easier to be successful in the mix than topside. That does NOT mean that it should be played as such.

Let me share with you an anecdote from when I first got playing, and I met up with an amazing roleplayer. I was someone who wanted to become a medic, but being new to the game, I had zero idea how to go about doing that. So I told my met-yesterday new ace chum 'I really need to find work as a medic.' My ace chum turns to me and whispers across the table: "I'm doing a job later, and I could use a set of eyes and hands to watch my back. No fighting, just as a medic." I immediately agreed. Said chum, a few hours later contacts my character and lays out the job: He's chasing a bounty, there's a chance that some people who are after him could find him on the job, and the bounty target was dangerous, to boot. But he could handle them. He needed to make sure he didn't bleed out on the job. Follow along and I'd make a couple thousand (Whoah, huge money for immy!?!)

So we went out, we patrolled all over the city, we ducked into some odd, off the grid areas I'd immediately forget about, and 40ish minutes later the hunt was called off.

Years later, I'd come to look back and realize the following:

-That was probably all the spare money that character, who was also fairly new, had.

-That character wasn't a bounty hunter.

-There was no mark.

-It was an amazing time that got me hooked on this game, and still talking about it some five, six years later.

-At no point were coded realities of the game involved, it was pure RP, and pure theme, and some chicken scratch for money. That's it.

Keeping that in mind:

-Yes you can casually stroll around the mix and the worst that you'll probably encounter on a day to day basis is a dip or a rent-seeking ganger begging for tolls. -Yes you have five star food that wasn't depreciated from your mix kitchen and you're not going hungry.

-Yes you can make stupidly huge wads of money doing basic as hell hustles in the mix.

Step away from coded reality and lean into the theme on an individual level. Some people will be block heads and say "Buh am richer than every corpie ah knarr!" Ignore them. Or better yet, decide that they, in their fame and wealth, need to be the first targets for venting the pressure from being crushed under boots all day, every day. For working endless hours on the assembly line to barely make enough for a beer and a cube, while this chum talks about eating caviar and having millions in the bank. Some people will get it, and will play along with you. Better yet, new players will get a feel for theme that 'feels' to be lacking and you'll have fostered someone who can pay it forwards later. You can be that nameless bounty hunter in a bar, bored and drinking beer who takes the initiative to do something themely. Or you can be one of the masses sitting in bars and bitching about how nothing is going on. Which do you prefer?

It's become pretty clear there is a significant chunk of players who see the game mainly as a social venue, and I think this is partly an explanation for the glut of players topside and a substantial part of the reason why the Mix (being notionally rooted in conflict) has died on the vine.

The Mix went from servies are class traitors, to No Rats, to corps are okay but not the WJF, to gangers turning in WJF bounties on one another, to Mixers and gangers and topsiders banding together to claim WJF bounties and cheering while they do. The reversal has seemed pretty comprehensive and it appears like there is almost zero pressure on any faction not to pal around with whoever they like to socialize on SIC with or whatever avenue provides the least conflict.

I think it makes sense that Joe Mixer would not really give a shit one way or another, and I also think it makes sense for certain organizations like private security to have closer corporate and ex-corporate connections, but all criminal factions should be way more hostile to corporate and ex-corporate characters (and especially hostile to anyone connected to the Hall) and should be outright the same authority and standing in the Mix as the WJF and corporations are topside. These should not be friend groups for topsiders to recruit or positions to eventually retire into.

I don't know that it's all that conjectural: Players pushed for conflict to be tamped down so there could be more socialization, Syndicate conflicts were depreciated, and a substantial amount of players and staff shifted topside. My experience has been that veteran characters now are overwhelming corporate or ex-corporate, and with little pressure for ex-corporate characters to conform to the Mix, the Mix has accordingly become basically an extension of topside.

I don't think this is anything one player can change by swimming against the current either, because the status quo is very advantageous from a gameplay standpoint. Limiting the potential pool of allies/recruits is worse than cliquing up with anyone with considerable UE investment, there needs to be some kind of additional thematic support unless the mechanics themselves change to encourage conflict organically (which I think is a way harder problem that requires much more dev time).

I think the assumption that the mix is less lively now and there are more corporates than ever because of some latent player desire for the game to be more social, less PVP is absolute, pure unadulterated speculation. And, entirely in my opinion, wrong.

The sentiment I've seen here on the boards and ingame is that the people who are moving from the mix or playing nice or whatever, are doing so because the PVP itself pushed them in that direction. People claim the mix is 'safer than ever', but is it? It depends on how you look at it. When I started, I too, noticed people were more open about conflict, shit would spill out onto the streets, there were flair, theatrics. It was very violent, more than now, sure. But people didn't mind, I didn't mind. Because it was fun, it was loud, public. I got dangled off rooftops, had half the city sent after me, had cinematic duels to settle beef. Now? Almost all the conflict I experienced in the last year or so were shroud kills and worse. Very little to no RP, and I don't even mean during, I mean before and after. And I, in my estimation, had it a lot better than a lot of people did. But yes, you can walk around, pay your tolls, play nice and generally never have to worry about a thing. I mean, sure. But nobody wants to/should do that, and if they do, they're doing that for a reason.

But people seem to want to continue dancing around the issue, so on we go. We have people both IC, and OOC on the boards admit they literally kill for loot, or even just for the sake of killing, but hey. Mix is safe, right? I've literally seen multiple players leave/perm or go topside because of shroud/repeated vatting, but again, the mix is safe. Let's just keep saying that until the mix ends up empty. We even had threads of people in endgame combat agreeing that the state of it is atrocious and burns people out hard.

I'm not offering solutions, I know, but damn, at least address the issue instead of just claiming players are randomly going topside because ???.

I think that it's reasonable that the Mix feel underpopulated. I mean, yes, it's a crammed-together slum, but also it's a world dictated by dead ends and people being stuck in a vicious cycle, not exactly the recipe for you to become someone. There's a multitude of ambient NPCs, but you can't give a shit about them because they're too absorbed in their own sad little lives that they won't drink or hustle with you. That leaves only the PCs who are persons of interest, just by virtue of them being hte only characters in the Mix who has the potential to be any different from the ambient and non-ambient NPCs who are always stuck in a rut, regardless of whether said NPC is a faceless goon or a powerful mob boss.

It makes sense OOC and IC that the Mix is 'underpopulated' with people who matter to your character. I just feel that the only way to make this better is to have the slightest OOC nudges to improve quality of life. An example I have on my mind is that it's pretty difficult to ICly seek out other PCs, because if you ask where people are hanging out you'll get the IC answer that there are ambient NPCs doing stuffs- but you don't give a shit about them, you want other players!

I have a wild idea that maybe the Mix can feel a little more workable and less grey if there was... I don't know, a dating service? Something that can be abused to link up with other players (using the term both OOCly and ICly) and alleviate the tedium of having to sort through the dross of people too stuck in their ways.

But when I type that out, it does seem more like something a player can do ICly instead of the staff? And hell, it is something people are already doing, maybe the stars just have aligned so that there's no player doing it in a way that unifies the PCs in the Mix right now. I feel like that could happen on its own, or staff could make an NPC to do that as an example before shifting the mantle over to a worthy PC.