In all seriousness, I personally don't share Shelco's concerns. The alternative would be the Auxesian approach in trying to be everywhere, which people also didn't like. So what's it gonna be? You can't please people, so just do what you think your faction should be doing.
(10-15-2017, 04:53 PM)Shelco Wrote: In the year in which Forlorn has been existing there basically has never been a complaint or real criticism. Feels bad to be the first one to do so.
First off: No matter what anyone says, you are good peeps, your RP skills are very good and I'd enjoy RPing with you if that chance would come to stand. The people you have in your faction are all enjoyable which I can say from my own experience but there are a few things I want to address.
I cannot imagine Forlorn as an official faction, here's why I (PERSONALLY OK?) think why:
a.) What is it going to get you?
Should you become official, what will happen? I feel like it will be a rush of happiness at first but then you might realize that it isn't going to get you really far. No bases, no owned systems, nothing you don't have anyway.
b.) The mercenary part
Since Forlorn are mercenaries, I don't really see much mercenary stuff going on, when you started to amass ingame you did a lot of that and I definitely give you credit for it. But now all I see is occasional bounty hunting, something we have an official faction for already.
c.) So many possibilities
What makes Forlorn so good for people to watch is the depth of the characters, but are the characters really Forlorn? Or have they developed Freelancers with a tag? Freelancer factions have infinite RP possibilities, no ZoI, you are as free as a birb and yet your activity mostly consists of sitting around Trenton and having hourlong RP with others. Rp, a bad thing? No, definitely not but as a faction you should have a purpose, moderating tea parties around Trenton is none. I never saw a Forlorn ship really going beyond the basic stuffed places to search for unique RP, if DWR wanted to RP with you, we'd probably never get to that point unless we come to Liberty. You should spread the wings your ID gives you.
d.) The Liberty thing
Yes, Liberty is by far the most active place and nobody is going to judge you for being there. But should it really be the centre of your activity? People enjoy the RP you are providing by talking a lot with characters bypassing you and that's why your support is really big in the game. But one needs to judge by the claimed purpose of a faction as well. Imagine if I would gather 3 DWR Wraiths to sit at Trenton all day and talk to people. Sure, RP would come out of it, maybe stories but is that what Bundschuh pilots should/would do all day? Is that really the purpose? Not really. I'd not even write this if I would get to see you elsewhere than Liberty and surrounding systems.
Apart from that, I can't really say much. I know your RP is very good, but funnily enough, I've never had any RP talk or similar with a Forlorn ship since I am not flying in Liberty, which kind of confirms my thoughts.
What I would wish from Forlorn is more RP outside of Liberty with more diversity in people, not always the same people with the same characters at the same place. More possibilities to make something out of the many things you can have RP-wise. More faction-related RP that really shows Forlorn as the role it wants to portray itself instead of individual character RP drama and problems. That is not a bad thing but shouldn't take over the majority of your activity.
Anyways, hope to see you guys elsewhere from time to time and see more diversity Good luck ^-^
First of all, thanks for the feedback Shelco. While it’s not entirely true that we haven’t been criticized in the past, it constricted itself to being rather subliminal. We are glad about any kind of feedback we can get, may it be good or bad. We thank you for the kind words, and will definitely consider your pieces of advice. However, we want to make an own statement about how things you have spoken about are from our point of view. Without further ado, let’s get to the raised points.
To a):
Official Factions are granted additional perks that they can make use of. While you are correct in assuming that we don’t have any guard system for the Forlorn Hope, we are currently working on putting RP around one of the Derelict Stations to establish it as a Forlorn Hope Base. Our own ID will insofar help us representing the faction as its pilots are flying Crayterian ships rather often, where the 75% Core hurts quite drastically. Also, it will help us to ingame show a deal the Forlorn Hope struck with CR some time ago pivoting on Coronado. Also, while we can’t make use of all the FRs, there will be a few we will be able to (namely 3, 4, 5 and 7). That is already a handful of additions that make striving for officialdom lucrative. But even if it was less we get, we would still view it as a challenge and attempt to master it. However, there is stuff for us to achieve, as I have pointed out above.
To b):
As Sombra has pointed out, life as indeed stacked the deck against some of our members, may it be through personal complications or unpleasantly timed schedules (e.g. long working hours or school stress). The Forlorn Hope, similar to any other faction out there, is going through ups and downs, depending on how things are for the people in the faction. We still do try to get ingame as often as possible, and pursue our inRP profession given the opportunity. We had and still have a number of extra deals with second parties that distinguish themselves from usual bounty hunting, however those contracts lie a bit idle currently – something we will try to fix again in the near future.
To c):
First of all, let me address your initial point. “Are the characters really Forlorn?” – for that, we need to define what the Forlorn Hope is: what has started out as a “group of Freelancers who have banded together […]” has by now turned into a Paramilitareque corporation, and thus you can find all kinds of people in its ranks. Mechanics, diplomats, the combat pilots, the list goes on quite long. What connects them is that they are being freelancers (somebody has once used the term “patchwork freelancers”, a term I think is quite fitting for the basic idea of our faction). Now that this is resolved, I think it’s quite obvious that the range of RP possibilities for our members is very wide, not least exactly because they are, above all, Freelancers with, as you said, nigh infinite possibilities. Additionally, we are encouraging our members to put effort into their characters, flesh them out and develop them and their personal story. As long as they act as a member of the Forlorn Hope – which means being a member of a PMC -, we don’t have any concerns about characters not being Forlorn in the sense of not representing the faction. Characters with own personalities and quirks is what we value highly, instead of “running things by the rule book” when it comes to character creation and development.
Second of all, it is definitely not deniable that one source of our activity has consistently stemmed from being around Manhattan orbit. However, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. When we aren’t able to fulfil our primal purpose (giving unlawfuls a thumping – however, I wanted to quickly mention that we are not a purely anti-unlawful faction – diversification is the name of the game) due to the current server activity, things will boil down to either logging off or staying for a talk. Whether this talk will be near Trenton or somewhere else doesn’t have much to do with it in the first place. However, Trenton is a chokepoint when it comes to finding interaction with other people, so the chance of doing RP near Trenton will be higher than near, for example, California Minor.
The Forlorn Hope’s main area of operation lays in Liberty and Bretonia, which explains why we are usually found around there. However, I would like to point out that as of late, several members of ours have actively tried to fight off the preconception of us being a “Trenton Boy-/Girlgroup” by actively visiting places that don’t fall under our usual operational area. However, trying to be anywhere anytime would be an absurd goal, and one we do not want to achieve. In some places there just is not much to do for us, or to word it differently: In some places, the possibilities to fulfil our primal purpose (giving unlawfuls a thumping) are severely limited due to server activity.
To d):
As I have already pointed out, the primary role of the Forlorn Hope is giving unlawfuls a thumping. Liberty is, as you stated, by far the most active place, which in turn implies that there is also the largest amount of unlawfuls around. To fulfil our primary role ingame, primarily staying in Liberty most of the time is logical. I agree with you that there is more RP to be had outside of Liberty as well, often one of higher quality as well, but it would not necessarily serve the purpose of our faction, or at least in a lesser way than remaining in Liberty would do. Standing-by near Trenton to wait for something to happen serves this purpose. Comparing Forlorn Hope and its behavior to sit on Trenton to DWR is like comparing apples with oranges, however. For the Forlorn Hope, sitting there serves the purpose of staying up-to-date about what is happening in Liberty and elsewhere (chokepoint again is the keyword here) and being on stand-by in case something happens. For Bundschuh activists on the other hand, I don’t see a reason to stay in Manhattan orbit. Their attention lies in Rheinland, not Liberty – different to the Forlorn Hope.
As a small side note, I wanted to point out that you already had the pleasure of meeting Forlorn ships in the past, on numerous occasions with various of your characters.
More diversity in people is something you can hardly demand from factions these days. There are only so many people our faction has to offer, we cannot conjure up more than we have currently.
In any way, we will take your pieces of criticism serious, since there are indeed a few points you have mentioned that could use some more tweaking from our side. We are however optimistic that this should not be too much of a difficulty.
I came here looking to see if there were any blanks I'd need to fill in. Seems it's all taken care of. Byron and Faby are both my 2iC's, and they have more than proved themselves up for the task. That said, can we please keep discussions over what may or may not be an import from different games out of it, especially on such shaky grounds as coincidental names, that have no relevance to the factions attached to them.
Dear admins, please put me out of my misery and lemme know what the verdict is. I waited a few days in case votes are on going, but I feel like its time for a gentle bump just in case this has been overlooked by some chance.
Looks really well put together, I like how you aren't going for too much too soon and I can see this growing into a really important part of Discos future, Kudos for the nice write up, can't wait to meet you ingame where I will judge your play style
Now this one is a tad more difficult. Officialdom granted. This is the ID we propose:
The Forlorn Hope is a paramilitary corporation which is based out of the Independent Worlds. The Forlorn Hope relies on a carefully maintained network of contacts to sanction and fund their operations across the sector.
Pilot carrying this quasi-lawful ID is a member of the Forlorn Hope, who:
- Can attack ships belonging to houses or organizations considered hostile by the Forlorn Hope within their Zone of Influence.
- Can attack ships in self-defense, to protect an allied or neutral lawful ship, or in defense of allied bases within their Zone of Influence.
- Can fulfill lawful bounty and escort contracts, and treat transports as combat targets when executing a bounty or escort contract against them, even outside of their Zone of Influence.
- Cannot post bounties.
- Cannot use any transports with more than 3,600 cargo, except for the Pirate Train.
Zone of Influence: Baffin, Coronado, Cortez, Magellan, Liberty.
Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports, Gunboats
As usual, if this is being abused or such we'll have to amend it, but the whole reason we grant it is because we trust that you don't.
Good luck ^-^
![[Image: UutJfcI.png]](https://i.imgur.com/UutJfcI.png)
