How to make official factions better?

[JIVA]

power to factions, faction powerabuse, unbalance / balance between two groups ( factions / non-factionized player )

all that is a bit problematic from my point of view.

firstly - power to factions is a GOOD thing... provided that the power is not abused. i compare it to monachy ( no, not the useless monachy today, but the monachy system in the middle ages ) - when you have a wise and reasonable king, monarchy is a great system. - it is fast, efficient and just.

but the very same system fails when your king is a selfish bastard. - the problem is not the system - the problem are those that benefit from it.

one faction leader is a great person, charismatic, reasonable and popular. - but is his second in command the same? ( or his successor )

do we apply mechanisms that ENSURE the quality that is NEEDED to apply such a system? - what happens when a faction really abuses power, who says that power is abused?

experience tells that the more the factions consider themselves to be "flawless" the more "defensive" they react to any sort of critizism ( while factions that are considered to be of rather lower standard or that take things "easier" usually have little problems with feedback threads and critizism )

so - factions and power: - only when we have ways to strip them off the power when they abuse it and only if factions work transparent and honest.

secondly - in general... one of the greatest problems with the whole discussion is that we artificially create a "we" and "them" situation. already in this rather short thread, i have read "why should they have the same opportunities like us?" ....

who is them, who is us for that matter? - people are so quick to associate "us/we" with the "good" guys - and "them" with the "bad" guys. - people so quickly tune it down to a very simple scale - which in turn means they fail to consider each player separately.

not every faction player is powerhungry, not every non-facitonized player is an ooRP jerk. - but i predict.... that this will happen sooner or later - if the idea of "us" and "them" is enforced and included. and once its in the heads of the people - it ll stick there and is very hard to remove.

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the [JIVA] group