Factions!!

[Petitioner]

This is a discussion that the staff team has been wanting to have for awhile now. Just as points of reference to frame the conversation, there's TheKusari's thread about overhauling activity checks, but also note how many OFs are either carried entirely by a few people, or how multiple are led by one person (eg Lemon and the multiple factions he runs). I'm not here to criticize anyone for the way they interact with official factions, and frankly I'm grateful that so many of us are putting in so much effort to keep things going. Yet, it's clear that OFs don't serve the same role that they used to. With that said, here's my perception of what OFs (nominally) do or should do, as well as what it looks like in practice:

How it "should" work

1) They provide legitimacy to those groups of players who want to represent their factions to the development and admin teams. By being active enough to pass checks, they have a valid claim to say "we're the group of players who care the most about faction X, therefore our suggestions to the dev team or faction requests for ID changes etc mean more than if they came from a random indy".
2) They provide an example to unofficial groups and independent players as to how the faction should be roleplayed. If someone wants to play an Order character, but isn't quite sure how to go about it or interact with other factions/groups as an Order pilot, they can look to the Order| OF and take heavy inspiration from the way Order| does it. After all, if that was the "wrong way to play" the faction, then surely they wouldn't be official, right? OFs also provide "plot hooks" for indy players and factions to take advantage of, and explore in different ways. They're able to do this because of their status as "standard-bearers" for the NPC faction, thus enriching the opportunities available to those who play that NPC IFF without being in the OF.
3) The time requirement helps keep players invested and gives them a goal to shoot for. By doing so it helps to generate activity, especially because without the minimum log hours, they would lose any OF perks they may have, and who doesn't like having special unique stuff?

How it actually works

1) This point mostly functions as it should, at least from what I see. Official faction leaders seem to, on the whole, have a decent and respectable relationship with the staff teams which essentially works as designed. However, my perception might be flawed here because I'm neither an OFL nor do I directly interact with them much in my capacities as a mod.
2) I'm not so sure about this one. For the most part, I feel like NPC groups which have OFs are either played mostly by people who are already in those OFs (as one example, how often do you see Crayter indies that aren't lolwuts or just farming missions in caps?), or by players who don't need guidance in how to do their RP, and are thus capable of forming their own unofficial groups that add constructively to the RP environment, yet at the same time their roleplay is essentially entirely independent of the OF and would be more or less the exact same even if the OF weren't around at all. I'm unsure if this is because of the population issue or because the system isn't working optimally here.
3) I think if this were true the player count would be higher. As it is, it feels like people are motivated to log not because of a constructive goal of "I wanna get more stuff"/"I wanna provide RP opportunities to others", but rather because they would take it as a personal failulre if their faction was de-OF'd and thus lost OF perks. In short, maximizing "pixel power" rather than out of a desire to contribute to the NPC faction as a whole beyond just their OF, or even improving the RP environment. I'm not sure if I'm being cynical here, if this is unavoidable given the current social dynamics that come with lowpop, or if this is a failure of the current system and the structural incentives logtime requirements introduce. However, the fact I have to ask this question in the first place is a big part of why I felt it necessary to make this thread.

Points which are essentially at the heart of the current issues I see with OFs:

1) What is the essential function of official player factions in 2023? If it's different than in years past, why and how?
2) Is the current official faction system good? If not, why is it bad?
3) What immediate practical steps could be taken to improve it?
4) Should we scrap "official faction status" entirely?
5) Do you have confidence in the staff to properly implement a better system? Why or why not?

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