Story Railroading.

[Miaou]

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.
  

This is all a good concept on paper. But it ends there. It's been attempted to give official faction leaders more say and have the whole "talk it out with the others". This is before the DWG nonsense even. I myself led a faction (GRN|) and it took like three months for myself and the IMG| leader at the time to submit something we actually both agreed on. It was just to move a valor base near java. We both agreed it should be moved next to Java but it's exact location was a major tripping point and what the IMG would gain from it.

I reference this because that's the most tame example. Faction leaders are often not great people with horrible ideas that only benefit their faction in a positive light. They don't even make sense half the time. Nobody understands that losing something can be great for character motivation and growth. Great for story lines to go and having a real, viable persistent world. There's no vetting process and the admins just approve any faction going for official if it has the time requirement.

Nobody will ever agree to a story line where their faction vanishes or loses so hard it breaks up. But that's a realistic thing that could and should happen. You mention a give and take system but that's just stagnation. Nothing ever actually develops if there's a mindset that one side will lose one story arc then win the next one, repeating the cycle. There's nothing new about that.

If your intention is actually to promote this as a roleplay server, equality and fairness (in terms of how a story line progresses) shouldn't be a factor. People should be fine with losing stuff. People should be fine with developing their characters to feel emotions only than hate for the red target and pride for their green one.

Things need a vast overhaul if you actually want to change how this community runs. Soft changes will do little.

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Characters & Stories