Faction Member Cap limit

[sovereign]

I'm sure this will go down like a lead balloon but I am not here to gain popularity so lets get on with it;

Why not introduce a limit on the number of members that a faction can have at any one time? There are numerous reasons for doing this and I shall list them below in no particular order.

Better to speak and have your questions answered than harbor resentment. That said, *whips out his balloon popping kit*

1) All real world military and organisations etc have a limit to what they can afford in terms of manpower and equipment. There are budgets to stick to that do not allow the constant recruiting of new personell without first making space for them. Such factors as training, facilities, accomodation, kit cost etc all dictate what can be afforded. The same goes for civil organisations and corporations.

True. This is usually reflected in fighter/capital ship/transport proportions, and why poor factions trying to fly a lot of caps gets yelled at, and I would assume any military faction pretending it didn't have the resources for caps would get yelled at for similar reasons. Balance aside, that is.

2) In discovery, certain areas are overpopulated by members of certain factions whilst other regions can be more like a ghost town. I speak of course of Leeds and New York systems for example. Factions based in these areas have seemingly recruited indiscrimately to get there numbers up. So much so that BAF are even asking their members to also join an opposing faction just so they have someone to fight and RP with!

They don't recruit indiscriminately, if they did, nobody would respect them. Because of exactly what you mentioned, the BAF have stopped recruiting at all. New York is populated by indies more than anything else, they haven't exactly been "recruited"... besides, the systems you mentioned really should have a pile of people in them, Leeds is the warzone in the Kusari-Bretonia war, and New York is the central trading hub of Sirius, along with the most densely packed (max base limit, if I recall) system ever. True, some other systems could use some neat stuff to make them a little more interesting and appealing, but if the player factions aren't recruiting people to hang around the hubs than its hardly their fault, now is it?

I personally don't think that members of 1 faction should be able to join a directly opposed one. I know everyone will scream "ROLEPLAY" but i say *******s to that. How about a little bit of good old fashioned competitiveness for a change? I have a Kusari pilot and i'd be far less inclined to fight Kusari enemies knowing that most of em also belong to my faction too. Whats the bloody point? There is also a conflict of interests involved in being a member of 2 directly opposed factions.

Conflict of interest...? If people roleplay, then the characters won't blur. If you feed troop locations to the enemy in roleplay (for example, if you accept bribes from them) then there's no problem. If your "friends" figure it out in roleplay and deal with your roleplayed treachery in roleplay then great! If the player shows a problem with such, then they get kicked out (usually from both factions) for being arses. Same for if they abuse their position within multiple factions. In my time here, I know of two such examples, out of the hundreds of people I know in multiple factions.

Exhibit A: It's been awhile, so this might not be exactly what happened but here's what I remember. A year or so ago, one of the Lane Hackers "hacked" the Liberty Navy secure forums- he had the password from being a member of the Liberty Navy. Xoria (the leader of the Lane Hackers) kicked him out on the spot, apologized to the Liberty Navy, and suggested they kick him out of the there too. I vaguely remember him considering taking the offender to the admins as well.

Also, being a part of multiple factions doesn't mean you feel silly fighting your friends. In fact, basically all of Rheinland is one playerbase, but we shoot each other up all the time, RP while doing it, and never feel "silly" about it. We're still friends, too. It helps far more than it hurts... here's why.

Rheinland players tend to have characters on both the unlawful and lawful side in Rheinland. Count the number of threads initiated from one Rheinland faction ripping on another outside of RP.

Outcast and Corsair players tend not to have a character in the other faction. Count the number of threads initiated from one Hispanic faction ripping on another outside of RP.

The first nets "zero", the second nets several dozen.

I'm sure it's no coincidence because the few Outcast/Corsair players who *do* have opposing characters tend to be the only ones *not* flaming each other mercilessly.

As far as 'oh, I'm just killing my wingmate, this is silly' thoughts... there's a lot more silliness from the people who aren't wingmates with their targets than the people who are. You learn to respect the people you fly with (usually) and it's easier to think of them as humans- without that, well, pick any OC/'sair thread and read it.

You also mentioned how multifactioning dulls the competitive spirit or something along those lines... well, competitiveness is great, but without a check of some sort it gets out of hand. Really fast.

Exhibit B: The Sephardi sanction incident, resulting from 'competitive spirit' coming before sportsmanship.

Rheinland has plenty of contests without any such shenanigans.

3) Military groups inparticular are structured and this should be implemented in game. Official factions should be given a member limit and then submit a makeup of their faction to admin that they must stick to when recruiting with that member limit in mind. High command, fighter wing, bomber wing etc, all with assigned member slots to be filled. When the slots are filled recruitment stops. If you want to recruit another member then kick an innactive player or one who you feel would be better replaced by your aspiring applicant. Far more realistic in my mind than allowing factions to recruit anyone just 'cos they write a good story on the forums. Try conducting interviews ingame in future and then see how many people you would recruit. I gurantee it would not be the same.

Any faction worth its salt does this anyway, just without hard numbers. If you're flooded with people and have no one to fight, you close recruitment and tell people to join the other side. Nobody is silly enough to promote a pile of people to high command, either. A lot of factions also have an ingame test of sorts, whether this occurs before acceptance or before being promoted depends on the faction. Rest assured, if a faction doesn't think you help them then "bye-bye".

If the admins mandated it with an iron fist, you're right, it would not be the same.

Everyone would hate the admins, and not give them the respect that is needed for a successful server community.

4) Has anyone noticed how often it appears that when there are plenty of pirates in the lanes there are not many police or military around? And vice versa ofcourse! Dont really need to make much more of a point of that as its obvious why. This goes hand in hand with my opposing membership objection above. I would suggest that lawful players be allowed unlawful characters only in areas of influence that are separate.

When there's a bunch of unlawful Rheinlanders online, I'll log my RM and have a great time, or vice versa. Easy to balance numbers when you've got people on the other side. When people have characters on one side, you think that will make the numbers more balanced? Rather, it would mean that during some times there would be only lawfuls and in other times only pirates.

And again, Sephardi sanction incident. If you only fight people and never get the chance to know them on friendly terms, you don't really view them as humans, or worth your respect. Community-destructive shenanigans ensue without fail.

All the above are suggestions based on personal opinion only and are posted here merely as a point for discussion. I feel that in order to create a well balanced galaxy that is fun for all no matter who or where they are then we need to take measures to spread out the player population a bit. New york is notoriously congested with players nearly all the time. I believe they claim to be RPing but in my experience it is nothing more than sitting around using overactive imaginations to make up crap that nobody else has any idea about most of the time. I find a visit to NY far more disturbing than when I used to visit my grandmother in the senile dementia ward. Anyway I've had my say, queue inflammatory replies and dont forget to send insults to my PM inbox as usual, I do miss them so and I get a real feeling of belonging from them. ( you know who you are :D)

You're right, steps should be taken to spread out the playerbase from such hotspots as Omicron Delta and New York. But restriction breeds resentment. Providing reasons to go to other places willingly is a far better way to handle the situation; the trade system is being designed with intent to encourage such behavior (if you feel it does an inadequate job, take that up in the appropriate forum, not here), the BAF is encouraging people to spread their wings (yes, encouraging, not mandating, read the whole thread), etc.

Oh, this just occurred to me too...

If multifactioning is the problem, people will just make indies for no purpose other than to get around the rule. I don't remember the situation, but someone or other instituted some rule and within a day, about a dozen people made indies just to spite the rule. Actually, I can think of a lot of rules that met such response. People don't like being regulated, they like being encouraged. If you put restrictions on what factions people can make indies for even, then just declare the server "Discovery Authoritarianlancer RP 24/7 Server" and be done with it.

I'm aware that your ideas probably seem good to you on paper, but they'll do far more harm than good. I've been here long enough to know how badly some of this would turn out, and I'm sure the people who have been here longer than me have even more reason to think the same. You are, of course, still entitled to your opinion. I've laid down my points, what you believe is up to you. If you have questions I'll do what I can to answer them.

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