concerning factions and their influence

[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.)

---

[LN] Recruitment | Rachel Baker Bio