concerning factions and their influence

[Mímir]

The bottom line, which has been made several times already, is that factions need something, a hook, a bonus, some incentive for people to join and stay. It's only logical to look at the most popular attraction (capital ships) and think "Hmm I wonder..."

Sorry, I have tried saying it nicely, I have tried to appeal to common sense and now I tried raging and none of it works. How do I reach out to you*?

Again I'll try with the common sense: How would it be an incentive to join your faction to be able to pilot a ship you all despise people for piloting? Where exactly is the fun in that for me (and for you - do you really want members who you don't like and who don't like you and only are there because that's the way it has to be if they want to play the game the way they like to play it?), when I can just go play another game where I don't have to join in on this really odd way of group-thinking? Please let go of this idea.

It is true that capital ships can destroy snub fights, but that is mostly via botfeeding which some say isn't even an issue at all. Speed makes it easy to get away from the cap if you don't feel like fighting it, so there's that. Most capital ships are balanced to die horribly as well, we all know that, so it is faster and easier to remove an annoying enemy Battleship than a Liberator. I really don't see the issue. To add to that, some official factions are downright infamous for botsharing from caps to snubs and think that is a totally ok way of playing the game, so what exactly is limiting caps to only official factions going to solve?

*"You" as in traditionalist/conservative "faction players" - my other rant wasn't directed at you, it was at that all to familiar PoV you put forth which some other people also have constantly written down in posts over the last 4-5 years.

@Katherine:
I read Mimir post and he didn't come with a solution or an idea. All he did was bashing official factions for being lazy and unpopular but not even a suggestion on how they could become popular. I've seen people like this for years coming and going... hell, I've been one of them, bashing official factions for God knows what but never coming with a solution.

I have many ideas for solutions, the problem is that none of these ideas are what people want to hear. I have been here for long enough to know that posting progressive ideas changes even less than these discussions.

To the point though: The main issue is lazyness/lack of creativity in terms of what to offer players and how, and I think that is fair to point out - especially when people seem to feel entitled to determine how I and other indies are to play the game.

Edit: Found some more that I would like to comment on:

To the general indy, looking into official faction recruitment, it comes across as a list of instructions and/or limitations.

While I totally understand your sentiment, I have to point out that factions themselves choose how to form their recruitment. Some of them put the limitations right up there at the front because A) They are masochists or B) They take everyone else for total idiots / have a fundamental lack of trust in co-players they don't know in advance. They could make it sexy, but they don't - maybe experience have proven that this is the best way to do it, and that is alright. I am just saying some factions are doing a bad marketing job and they should look at that first before trying to limit everyone else.

Regardless of how small that list is, even if it is just spending time to write an in-RP app, it is still something more to do that an indy does not. And in return? Hehe, well, with 'balance' all indy's are to be given free access to their faction's (Read - "their ID's") tech.

For me, writing an application for a character to fit into a faction with pre-given guidelines is far, far, far easier than writing a story for one of my indies.

As such, they gain nothing special in return but a couple of letters/symbols prefixing their name. And some minor prominence in the highly elitist social structure of disco. Oh, and some responsibility.

Flying in the faction should be what you get in return. Yes, I said that. That feeling of pride when you tag your ship, move up through the ranks, when your character starts to unfold and his/hers opinions actually start to matter, the fun of flying with other people, increased success rate in combat, increased profits when trading. People generally treat you with more respect, they roleplay with you were they wouldn't in an untagged ship. Other characters will be tied to your character through the faction, and you get a more immersive roleplay experience - your character seems more "real" when it exists in the minds of other players. There are so many rewards, but some players have been all too busy selling the downsides of playing in a faction that they forgot to advertise the extremely positive ones. At least that's my feeling of the situation, and that's a suggestion to part of the solution: Be a little bit positive.

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[Croft]

Maybe you'd have more luck "reaching me" if you'd actually read what I have posted instead of noticing the words "limit" and "caps" then proceeding to jump all over me. I made a SUGGESTION, not a bloody demand, it is an IDEA.

There I capitalised the important words for you.

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Jimmy The Rat | Croft's Feedback | The Rat Pack

[Mímir]

Bad idea.

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[.Gypsy.]

lets limit battleships to official factions

Um.. No, That is unless you want only 20 people playing on the server. Plus faction leaders have enough power as it is without saying who gets to use a cap and who doesn't.

That's the main problem..right there..it all comes down to those very last words..
Why shouldn't they keep working to maintain what they earned and not just think they are self entitled to more than others?

This attitude needs to be changed..

+100
Kudos and a cookie for you.

Its a game, players come here to have fun, period. Not to take orders from some hyper inflated ego if they don't want. (not all are like that. I'm referring to the attitude some have displayed in this very thread)

Any and all changes should first pass the "Will it make the game funner" test, if it doesn't, then change it so it does.

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[Murcielago]

I have read all those posts (walls of text) here so long that I forgor
what this thread is all about.

Ah but yes I remember now, I have notice one word few times.
Game should be spining round this word and this word is FUN.

Soo here we are some I dunno 50? 80? 120? players and each of us have different opinion what fun is.

For me fun is that I can have some RP...to have more than some PEW...
if I wish to have some peace to fly through Gallia...soo what is FUN for you?

Also I hope you do rememeber that this game is called FREELANCER
and not FRACTIONLANCER....or ELITELANCER.

Soo guys that you call INDE common guys like me
Well I came here to play FREELANCER and to have FUN while playing it.
With all possible ships and good things that I can get.


So please don't cry why server don't have lot players.
You are making all changes and all rules.

Soo you can lock up nice things but I wonder if you will get more INDE players
or any players in game.
Ah yes I just remember one more thing, this game is (was) not hard to play becouse of new INDE noob but becouse of you soo called ELITE players.


ps: to Spiritar:
I have borrow one line from your text and I wish to use it as signture.
I hope you are so kind and you will permit me to use it.

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Lords will rule their land as they see fit, and the serfs shall merely beg.

[ProwlerPC]

Oh this topic that I'm all too familiar with.

This thread reminds me of a wall of text I wrote in the admin section when I was in staff. I invite the current set of admins to read it.

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[Pavel]

Posted in a mod balance while it's about our server. Moving to proper subforum

[Sarawr!?]

I've been trying to avoid this topic, as really I think things are "okay" the way they are right now. They're not ever going to be "perfect".

That being said...here we go, factions don't need more "power", players as a whole do. Within reason, the actions, stories, and efforts of individual players -AND- of official factions, should have meaning, and they should have some effect on the story at large or at least be noted and included in it, if said efforts and stories and actions pertain to it.

Now, what faction players "need", is to have their input given more regard when the devs make changes concerning their factions. Faction players are here to have fun as well, so when say, two factions agree to push developments of their relations forward a bit by having one faction capture a ship/base that belongs to the other, and then they go out and write all the story materials and do all the roleplaying they can to make that development happen, and the admins/devs make the change and then revert it because it's "Unpopular", that's not really very fun at all, and it makes people feel like they've wasted their time.

What I'm trying to say is that if two factions have been interacting with one another in a certain way, and then the devs/admins come and neuter whatever those two factions have been doing for x amount of time, well, that's not right, and that's a major problem on the faction-player side of things.

If factions are supposed to drive story developments within their "sphere", the devteam should let them do just that, work with them, listen to their input, and move forward from there. Don't tell people one thing and then do something completely opposite, it makes people lose interest and it makes people feel as though they've wasted time. Official factions really do not have as much "Power", as some of you like to think, and often enough we're the ones under the knife when development changes occur.

Communication is a two way effort, and development changes should NOT be made without at least gathering input from the people who those changes will effect beforehand, with the intent of keeping things fun.

Overall, more importance should be given to the results of individual roleplay within this community, as opposed to making decisions from what's perceived as "The top", seemingly without regard for what other groups or people may have been doing prior.

I for one would like to see more communication between the development team and the competent playerbase as a whole, not just the faction leadership, when significant changes are going to be made.

(Now I'll say this though, recently, there's been some improvement in that communication, and I noticed that some people have sought the input of factions regarding changes, and that's cool, and that's how it should be, but yeah.)

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[LN] Recruitment | Rachel Baker Bio

[.Gypsy.]

Words

Now this is another good productive comment, The more you involve everyone, the better things will become. The more people feel there efforts (indie or factions) are actually affecting the story, the cooler it will be.

Obviously factions should have a much bigger roll in this but it would be cool if some action you took affected something, no matter how small.

Back to factions.. If you look at the player list at any time, faction members are the minority, well except some times liberty which in of itself, being so huge limits all the other factions growth, after all why join say Rheinland or Corsairs when liberty factions outnumber all others combined (active players number wise)

I really think 1-2 month terms for leadership of a faction before going for a vote is a good way to get faction membership up... and removing stagnation, but penalizing indies for not joining is a terrible idea (ie restricting ships or equipment) that's a sure fire way to loose a ton of players.

Also as I mentioned before, factions should really conciser what I said in another post in this thread about allowing players to use the ship they want and not force them to fly something they don't want. So what if there's 10 caps in one spot, you know how cool that battle will be

And you can always require they also own snubs.. the reason this (I think anyway) is a good idea for factions is as I said, look at the online player list at any given time. Look how few actual faction(s) member(s) are online. If a player could fly the ship he wanted in a faction, he would play that ship he likes. Guess what would happen, I bet half at least of the players online would be faction members because that ship that wasn't allowed in now has a tag. And the more tags that are online, the more tags it will attract.

Make sense?

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[LunaticOnTheGrass]

Also I hope you do rememeber that this game is called FREELANCER
and not F®ACTIONLANCER....or ELITELANCER.

That is correct, you're playing Freelancer.

What is the name of the Server you're playing, however? That would be Discovery RP 24/7. And regrettably, the proportions of poor RP-experiences I've had with players strongly lean towards the non-official end.

That in no way implies that indie-dom is a plague and all indies should be corralled into an official faction; I've had great experiences with some. Simply, as much as it's been mentioned already, the fact that legions of indy cap-ships can operate without any restriction or responsibility just rubs me the wrong way, and has rubbed me the wrong way ever since I've started playing and RPing here.

Nothing has been more immersion-breaking to me in this server than indy caps.

Maybe I'm the only one who has a problem with it being that way. But I guess in my own personal case, I prefer roleplaying and storylines to in-game activities. That's why I'm here at Discovery in the first place, and if the balance ever skews away from that direction, I'd be the first to leave it.