Story Railroading.

[Ravenna Nagash]

This is a complicated topic but I am happy that Saronsen has raised it because it's something that I've thought about for some time and it's on my list to look into.

I am going to share my preliminary thoughts and mind you, they are surface level without any in-depth review. Generally, this topic can be split up into two main arguments.

• Give players and official groups the ability to influence the story.
  
• Have the story developers move the story along.
  

As with most things in life, moderation is the key and truth is found somewhere in the middle. If you only had OF moving the stories along, you would have chaos and people never agreeing to anything, everyone pushing the pie in their favor or trying to eat as much slices as possible, pardon the simple analogy. I understand that previously this was tried but failed because it was a shouting match. I think that some guidelines and proper implementation is key here.

The other possibility will provide stability and will be easier to implement. However, it definitely has much more negatives than the above and will ultimately bring down the community.

• We are playing on a role-play server. It's not a PvP arena. People are invested in their factions and in their characters. It's more than just a shooter. The goal of this server is to promote RP.
  
• If you remove the ability for players and factions to influence the story, you essentially omit any long-term player investment in this server. There's no point in playing in an RP server if the RP doesn't contribute to anything and the story is on rails or the same for 15 years. People might as well just play PvP. And, if people wanted pure PvP, they would not be playing Freelancer Discovery.
  
• If you remove the ability for players and factions to influence the story, you can potentially invalidate all the time and resources they spent in this game by making arbitrary decisions. You can alienate a big fraction of the player base in the process.
  
• If you rely on story developers for solely pushing the story, there's a number of issues. First of all, you are roadblocked on a limited amount of people. The same people with no oversight are vulnerable in number of ways - from working on what they like first (we are human after all), to pushing the story along in a way that they want without accountability and oversight. This also puts huge amount of pressure on said people to provide stories with limited time and resources.
  
• Simply put, it's not cost-effective, it's liable to abuse. And even if the people are absolutely objective, they have a limited resource and they themselves have limited scope.
  

I am still working my way around everything in discovery but I think the function of the administration, particularly in terms of story should be that of a benevolent guardian or a dungeon master.

And the goal of the dungeon master is for people to ultimately play by the rules, not to go completely outside of the constraints of the fiction they are in, and lastly to make sure they have fun.

I think for the most part, some of the old players have forgotten that this is what we are here to essentially do. If the game is not fun for the most part, people leave, communities die. And this community is not in a great shape.

Heavy disclaimer again, that this a surface level thought process and analysis.

To me, the solution is the following:

• Story devs should serve as mediator, guide, or essentially a Dungeon Master. They should not be the ones actually driving the story. The players should.
  
• The 1st / 2nd in commands of respective OFs should be able to create drafts, plans, stories, and move the plot along.
  
• If the plan involves their enemies, the respective OFs Leaders should come to a conclusion together and work it out. Be prepared to lose territory or to make concessions - have it go back and forth. Once the plan is aligned, the Dev signs it off if they thinks it's fair for both parties.
  
• If the OF leads are unable to come up with a solution themselves due to disagreements, greed, stubbornness or whatever other factor - the Dev intervenes in the most fair possible way. If the two leaders are not happy with that, this will incentivize them to find a common ground next time.
  
• The rules are kept and guidelines are provided. You prevent chaos and you ensure players and faction agency in the process. This results in people actually having something to look forward to.
  
• Devs are no longer a roadblock (they need to sign off something brought to them) , and at the same time they guide the process from being broken, out of the rails, or being unfair.
  
• You don't have 1 or 2 people deciding the fate of the entire mod's story, which is bad for numerous reasons. The process is more transparent.
  

Decisions need to be logical but most importantly made for the health and the good of the overall community. In the end, if no one plays, there's no point to it all. That's my surface level thought process. This topic is overall, a part of my agenda and I'm going to put thoughts into how the current system can be improved. Evidently, by the player sentiment here and based on what I've observed, there's a need for improvement.

Generally, I think we can all agree on that. It's the implementation that counts and having more transparency.

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Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.