Should official factions have more power?

[DearMatthew]

Simple fix. Faction blacklist? Post a bounty on the forum. Surely there aren't idiots out there, but really, you can't go smash unofficial's into the ground. They are the life and breath of new ideas and life into the server. It feels all to like you want to restrict the freedom of thoughts and ideas, and that is what clearly bothers me. Tazuras, I think might have the right idea. But wouldn't it just be easier for un-o's to just post their faction ideas, have the higher ups actively contact these factions to include them in inner-workings?

Is it really that hard to be like, "Hey, just so you know..." Be friendly and all.

All in all, unofficial's are just looking for a place to fit in on the server. Nothing wrong with trying.

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<div align="right">~R Fang</div>

[Xoria]

More powers would mean, to me belief, giving the ability to official faction to order some troublesome indies out of battle if they are unbalancing the event

Like a BS joining a previously balanced fight...

If the concerned player does not want to cooperate and play fair, he can be tagged as rogue until he contact the leadership or understand that fairness is a prerequisite to play here.

Kinda like what we used to do in Liberty during a brief period.

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that now.
Wait, let me put that in green so maybe it sinks in.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that now.

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[Agmen of Eladesor]

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that now.
Wait, let me put that in green so maybe it sinks in.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that now.

Actually...

http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35850

[color=#ffff00]By Order of the Council

The following ships should remove the BHG|Core tag immediately. If encountered carrying the BHG|Core- identification tag, they should be advised to repair their signal generator. If they fail to agree to do so immediately reclaim the ship.

BHG|Core-Hammerfall - Battlecruiser
BHG|Core-Meltdown - Battlecruiser
BHG|Core-Big-Toy - Battleship
BHG|"Leander"
BHG|Core-I-AM-SAD
BHG|Core-"Europa"

As the man said, there's nothing stopping us from doing that now. We of the BHG|, as an official faction, are policing ourselves. While we're not allowed to restrict people from purchasing our ships if they have the proper ID (which is something I would like to see changed back, where an official faction CAN restrict purchase of capital ships) - other than that, we are allowed to RP issues where someone has taken our faction tag and gone 'off the wall'.

And we've done so - these pilots mentioned here are considered rogue by us, and will be destroyed on sight if they don't change their names or sell their ships. This IS within RP, and is perfectly legal and acceptable.

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Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.

[dead_shot]

More power will bring more abuse of power, nothing else.

One big NO to this proposal! NPC faction or TAG is not to be owned by a certain group of people!

And the irony of the whole "voting" that is taking place here is that most of the indies don't even come to forum.

You want to chase people away from Disco?
Your solution: Give more power to certain groups of people so that they can bully the others.

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the path to hell is paved with good intentions!

[kingvaillant]

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that now.
Wait, let me put that in green so maybe it sinks in.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that now.

You are right on one aspect, yes, we can order them out of battle, etc. But because official factions have very little official powers right now, some indies will keep on refusing to accept our authority in our ZOI. Then, we are forced to take pvp measures against them (as it is the only way to put a ship out of space) which makes them label us as pvp-whore or powermongers. Not good for the image. So in short, yes we can... but it is extremely detrimental to us if the player if a big bad mouth

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Director of the Liberty Security Force: Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity

The Amundsen Zone-21 Restrictions

[Reverend Del]

Well there's nothing the Admin team can do to make that any easier.

Simply put, the kind of power folks are asking for here is already there for them to use.

Capital ship registration should not be mandatory

Capital ship purchase should not be restricted and those two powers will not be coming back.

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Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.

[Xoria]

You are right on one aspect, yes, we can order them out of battle, etc. But because official factions have very little official powers right now, some indies will keep on refusing to accept our authority in our ZOI. Then, we are forced to take pvp measures against them (as it is the only way to put a ship out of space) which makes them label us as pvp-whore or powermongers. Not good for the image. So in short, yes we can... but it is extremely detrimental to us if the player if a big bad mouth

Back when I was entering debate competitions (surprise, surprise), I learned the following about the core criteria necessary to win a debate : The affirmative debater must demonstrate Harms caused by the Status Quo that are Unique. Unique means that those Harms only exist as a result of the unique circumstances caused by the Status Quo. If the negative debater can demonstrate that all of the Harms posed by the affirmative debater are Non-Unique, then the negative debater automatically wins.

For example, if the affirmative debater claims that Status Quo ABC causes Harms X,Y, & Z, then the negative debater can win by demonstrating those Harms are also caused by Status Quo DEF, which still exists after the affirmative debater gets his way.

In this case, the harms you are citing exist regardless of the existing Status Quo, existed in the previous Status Quo, and will exist in any future conceivable Status Quo. Specifically,

Then, we are forced to take pvp measures against them (as it is the only way to put a ship out of space) which makes them label us as pvp-whore or powermongers. Not good for the image. So in short, yes we can... but it is extremely detrimental to us if the player if a big bad mouth

There is no other practical application of power that any faction, official or otherwise, or any player can exercise that is different from blowing people up and getting a bad rep for it due to a loudmouth, in either application or outcome.

The Harms exist either way, thus they are insufficient reason to change the Status Quo, because they cannot be eliminated.

---

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[Niezck]

Official, admin-given, included-in-the-rules, etc powers to determine what each and every member of that NPC faction (official or otherwise) can and cannot do, within certain boundries.

For example, the IMG Council doesn't really want people going and blowing up Bretonia or entering Omicron Alpha, as it simply encourages both factions to engage us when they could otherwise leave us in peace. Can we enforce this? No, we cannot. I don't think this is an unreasonable thing to impose, but it's still impossible to do so under the current rules.

More directly, I believe that official factions should be representative of the NPC faction. In that, if a faction is 'The Order', they should actually be The Order, rather than The Order, but not quite, ebcause there's all these other people who fly their own flags who're still The Order, but we can't do anything about them.

[Athenian]

I think the thread has been derailed - by the usual topics, i.e. who "controls" ships. "Complete" control, ie ownership, is an unenforceable pipe dream and not permitted anyway - and besides who wants to spend their time frowning at the fact that other players fly a ship by themselves and don't want to join you - maybe it's you who is at fault...maybe it's you who come across as an unimaginative ignoramus.

The other hijacker - the fractious, and ficticious indie/faction divide. With the changes in ship balance, the days of being your own independent one-man nation in your gunboat are over. Organisation is necessary to survive. Factions survive because they are organised.

If there are changes to the status of official factions being contemplated, why has a thread initiated by a member of the Admin team gone to ten pages before some people have to be reminded of powers factions already have by another member of the team?

If the concern is that the use of that power causes you to be accused of something, then perhaps it's worth looking at why people might accuse you of that. Maybe encountering a random faction tagged player in space hollering "You are not permitted to fly that" to someone who has done nothing to disrupt game play leaves a foul taste in one's mouth, as it should. A faction better be damned imaginative in how it behaves in game when it comes to exercising its power.

You could deal with player complaints in a RP manner.....because this game would be heaps more fun if people only ever posted on these forums in role play....but I can dream...

The other aspects of faction "power" - forum presence - got overlooked in all of this. And, crucially, their role in defining what is "accepted roleplay". Isn't destroying an enemy with overwhelming force acceptable roleplay? Is a player who waltzes into a fight to assist members of the same Navy in which he serves acting appropriately? Sure, messing up a dogfight if you are a little eager to try out your flak turrets might be unsporting or whatever, but it's not a reason to start burning crosses in people's front gardens.

What new powers could possibly be contemplated? Because frankly I can't think of any that don't already exist in-game.

That's not to say I don't want more power. Muhahahaha. Er....

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Former member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
Discovery Community Forum Rules

[farmerman]

Ok, there seems to be plenty of confusion about what factions actually can do now. Could someone clarify these examples for me please? I'm going to use "OF" for official player factions and "faction" for the npc variety thereof.

Can official factions:
1. ban those not adhering to the roleplay of the npc faction from landing on their bases?
2. shoot down those acting contrary to npc faction roleplay?
3. clarify ambiguous diplomatic issues?
4. ask a non-OF member to return to their primary ZOI and RP the consequences if they refuse?
5. clarify ZOI?
6. set diplomatic situations for non-OF members? (Or, can non-OF members claim the same benefits from any arrangements?)
7. completely restrict access to portions of guard systems?
8. represent the entire NPC faction (at least in the situations it makes sense, ie militaries yes, not so much with groups like Zoners?
9. restrict access to bases/areas to unaffiliated groups?
10. ask that those who repeatedly and conclusively act in ways counter to the faction's RP be made hostile to said faction?

Laying things out exactly (because things seem very murky after the Bs debacle and the chaos of the recent LR situations) will surely make things better for discussion.

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Faction info links: Samura Heavy Industries : LWB : Watchers