(07-26-2015, 12:07 AM)TheUnforgiven Wrote: I participated in a lot of convoys with the Congress, both conventional and jump trips, and it was always great fun. Everyone involved seemed to as well. But for some reason other players saw it as threatening and didn't think it was all that good for overall activity, that being the perks of being a Junker period. All I know is, the pscrap rush to alpha was a solid time for the Congress, both in activity and as a good inrp basis for a solid presence all over Sirius.
It was a solid time for Congress but irritated other players as not only did it harm roleplay interactions for the server, but it also caused distress to the other Junker players who continuously warned Congress that jumping Pscrap would ruin the commodity for all Junkers. Lo and behold, look at what happened. Noticed how general Junker activity has been falling in recent months?
Being someone who used to be, against his own desire, involved in continuous Junker 'matters', my thoughts on Congress are somewhat mixed. Whilst I do feel that you guys are throwing the towel in a bit too hard and too soon, as it's easy for you to resume your previous trading activities as you did in the past, I feel that Congress is somewhat deserving of this demise. Don't get me wrong, as much as JunkerTown may have perpetuated the image I'm not Junker Satan. Rather, I'm someone who had tried to do his best for the Junker NPC faction but got beaten up quite a lot on the way. Not that I mind any more though. I no longer lead JM and have pretty much let go of Junker RP.
I've never truly hated Congress, mostly I've just been disappointed. The big problem with Congress was (which was what they paid for with the loss of the POBs, community and staff backlash, as well as diplomatic backlashes) is that they were very fond of putting their faction first and pretending that everyone else on the server didn't exist. This mentality was perpetuated by the previous 1ic JT (and the HC if they even had one? I've heard that the organizational structure of Congress was non-existent) and was taught from member to member in the faction. The end product was a group of players that happily dragged the faction through the mud doing whatever they pleased but causing trouble for other players on the server, ignorant of whatever consequences may befall those players. The fact that Congress was able to worm their influence into the staff didn't help things for the faction either, as the Staff were (at least it seemed, this is mere conjecture) too much on the Congress's side that they were unable to come forward and tell them when they did something detrimental to the server and prevent them from further harming gameplay.
I feel that this was a significant factor that brought the faction to it's current position. It's unsolved mistakes caught up to it and bit it really hard in the arse. The general ignorance, unwillingness to change for the better of the community and desire to only seek what's best for itself caused the shock was so great that, as evidenced in recent months, broke the faction.
I must say though, recently I've been able to sympathise with the Congress. Truly, the more active your faction is the more flak it receives and some of it actually is the product of jealous from others. It's just a shame that you guys couldn't have put all that activity to good use. Excuse me if I sound snarky here as honestly it's not my intention, but the difference between Core and Congress is, although Core is by no means a perfect faction, we try not to put ourselves in front of the enjoyment and activity of others (which even still critics might debate on. Omg I don't even lock my feedback what more do they want >.>).
In conclusion, as with any faction Congress had potential to be something awesome. I've taken trips through time and looked at previous roleplay and gameplay from Congress and the quality is certainly higher (even better than JM in some regards). Sadly, the faction lacked the healthy mentality, attitude and compassion that is expected of every other faction on this server. Is Congress dead forever? Who knows. Whether Huggie wishes to try and keep things going (which I have heard is a mammoth task) is up to him. I only hope that he acknowledges the mistakes of his predecessors and tries to remedy them. Please don't interpret this as a "hurrr hate post!!" as that's not it's intention.