Over my years here I've seen official factions do very interesting things. And very dumb ones as well. For this weeks ''what if'' thread, I would like you to consider the thought of what would happen if we abolished ''officialdom'' as a concept.
Again, this is just a what-if thread. I highly doubt that such a suggestion would pass these days.
The reasoning for this is very simple - official factions stifle roleplay in terms of variation. They are a blanket concept made to allow players to impact lore for future Discovery updates, more or less. An admin-approved group of players who have the ability to work and progress their chosen ID. But we all know that not all NPC factions lore-wise would have an ''official'' faction representing them and at the same time, only maybe a handful of factions actively try to work on their ID and lore.
The alternative to the Official Faction would be a Lore Designer. A single person, whose single most duty is to conduct roleplay events and other changes within the NPC factions they are responsible for, and through those events and changes, the factions and groups of that ID would have the ability to influence them through ingame RP and forum presence.
This would, for the most part, make official factions more interesting to fly mainly due to the fact that they themselves aren't responsible to setting up their own game. It is like DnD in a way. DMing is fun, but sometimes you would rather play out the scenario someone else designs for you.
Another thing to consider is that this Lore Designer would be an admin-approved ''developer-esque'' position of power. Not a bunch of people who have elevated themselves to a faction title and now act as if they have some saying in how the lore should progress. No. Official factions often make up a fraction of people flying their chosen IDs. While on the other end of the spectrum - all of them.
A Lore Designer would responsible for making monthly or bi/tri-monthly changes to events, commodities or ZOI and diplomacy related things. And in an ideal scenario they would be anonymous to the community and with no contact to the faction leaders, where these changes would then give the factions and groups a chance to try and advance the lore with.
In other words, the Lore Designer prepares the possibility to advance lore and then the groups running that ID are given a chance to play it out. Keyword, a chance.
Depending on the quality of RP given by these groups, the lore designer then will apply the more fitting one to dedicate the outcome.
This would make it so that the group with the best roleplay quality and ideas will have the most chance to influence their NPC faction. And mind you the keyword here is the ''chance to influence'' since, IMHO, a faction changing their NPC faction's lore and progression with their roleplay is not a ''right'' but rather a ''privilege'' and we currently have too many people raging over who has the most influence over what.
Tl;DR, regular non-staff players should not have direct input on Discovery lore. They should have an ability to contribute if their contributions are sounds, but only through staff. "Faction power" and such is imho one of the many cancers of Disco. And still one that makes it fun in a way, so obviously abolishing it would take away a LOT of what keeps people around.
So yeah, feel free to provide this little thought with your very constructive and mannerful replies.
--------------
PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
----------
